


THREE TEXTILE 
RAW MATERIALS 

AND 

THEIR MANUFACTURE 




INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE BANK, INC. 
NEW YORK 


To \4-46 

.15 


Copyright, 1924 

International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 
New York 


©C1A 808500 


OCT 27 J924 


2 H ’ 2 S ?&,0 


'M.fc f 



CONTENTS 


Part One 

COTTON 


Chapter I 

The Raw Material .... 

# 

Page 

9 

Chapter II 

The Manufacture of Cotton 

. 

19 

Chapter III 

From Mill to Consumer . 

. 

49 

Chapter IV 

The Position of the United States . 

. 

52 


Chapter I 

Part Two 

WOOL 

The Raw Material . 


59 

Chapter II 

Worsted Manufacture 

. 

67 

Chapter III 

Woolen Manufacture 

. 

81 

Chapter IV 

The Economic Aspect 

• 

89 

Chapter I 

Part Three 

SILK 

The Raw Material . 


97 

Chapter II 

Reeling. 

• 

. 104 

Chapter III 

Marketing Raw Silk 

• 

. 109 

Chapter IV 

The Manufacture of Thrown 
and Spun Silk 

. 

. 115 

Chapter V 

Weaving and Finishing . 

• 

. 120 

Chapter VI 

Artificial Silk .... 

. 

. 123 


/ 


> 



Cotton Bolls 











































































PREFACE 


The importance of the three main textiles in the civilized life of today 
is probably but vaguely realized by the majority of people. In this 
country we consume raw cotton alone at the rate of about twenty-six 
pounds per capita each year, which if translated to yards of cloth and 
other fabric, would make a strip longer than the distance from the earth 
to the moon, and a yard wide all the way. Add wool and silk to this and 
the picture becomes even more impressive. There is not a man, woman 
or child who does not use one or all three of these textiles in daily life. 
With this in mind we submit this brief description of how they are pro¬ 
duced, emphasizing in particular' the development of the raw material 
in each case. 

Parts I and II are practically revised editions of “Cotton and Cotton 
Manufacture” and “Wool and Wool Manufacture” which were written 
by James Paul Warburg in 1921 and 1920, respectively, and published 
by the First National Bank of Boston, with whom he was then associated. 
We take this occasion to acknowledge the extreme courtesy of the First 
National Bank of Boston in allowing the use of this material. Part III, 
dealing with Silk, has been newly compiled by Benjamin Strong, Jr., of 
the International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 

No attempt has been made in these studies to enter very deeply into 
the technical processes involved, the purpose being more to give a con¬ 
densed outline of the subject from the layman’s point of view. While 
actual survey and observation were extensively made in each case, a 
great part of the material has of necessity been obtained from standard 
works on these subjects. In this connection we wish especially to render 
acknowledgment to Professor M. T. Copeland of Harvard University, 
whose studies were freely used by the author of Part I on Cotton. In the 
case of Silk, we are particularly grateful to Mr. W. D. Darby, whose 
“Silk, The Queen of Fabrics” has been of invaluable assistance. To the 
many friends in the textile trades who have provided opportunities for 
first hand observation, as well as a wealth of information, we tender our 
sincere thanks and grateful appreciation. 

INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE BANK, INC. 


New York, N. Y ., October , 1924. 






PART ONE 


COTTON 


By 

James Paul Warburg 

Vice-President 

International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 


Photographs by courtesy of the 
Pacific Mills and 
Keystone View Co. 



Cotton Field 




CHAPTER I 


THE RAW MATERIAL 
1. The Cotton Plant 

The word, “Cotton”, is said to be derived from an Arabic word, 
Qutun originally meaning flax; and the botanical name of the plant, 
Gossypium, signifying the fleece worn, was first found in the writings of 
Pliny, and is derived from the Sanskrit. Thus, in the mere origins of the 
colloquial and scientific designations of the plant, we have ample proof 
of its antiquity. 

The cotton plant belongs to the mallow family and is a native of the 
tropics. The genus has a great many botanical varieties, all of which, in 
the wild state, are perennial, but under cultivation tend to become an¬ 
nual. One variety, Gossypium Arboreum, which is found chiefly in 
Mexico and Brazil, attains a height of over fifteen feet. This tree cotton, 
however, has not been extensively cultivated because of the obvious ex¬ 
pense of picking. Of the herbaceous varieties the most commonly known 
are the American and the long-staple Egyptian. G. Barbadense, known 
as Sea Island cotton, is another long staple variety which is grown only 
in certain counties of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. 

In all the cultivated species the plant attains a height of two to four 
feet. The leaves vary, but all have characteristic lobes. The blossoms 
also vary a good deal in color, but have this in common that the seeds 
are contained in a pod or boll which is filled with a floss not unlike that 
of the common milk-weed. In due course the boll bursts, exposing the 
mass, of fluffy fibre from which the plant derives its extraordinary value. 
The superiority of cotton over other vegetable fibres, such as hemp or 
flax, is in the natural twist, which makes it inherently adaptable to spin¬ 
ning. The single fibre consists of a hollow tube having transverse joints 
at irregular intervals, and this tube, when dry, has a tendency to flatten 
out and curl. The more of this natural elasticity is found in the fibre the 
better it is for spinning purposes, and an immature fibre is for this rea¬ 
son unsatisfactory. Cotton is exceedingly susceptible to moisture, and a 
succession of violent atmospheric changes will cause such a rapid con¬ 
traction and expansion in its fibre as to destroy its elasticity. From 
the point of view of the manufacturer there is very little difference be¬ 
tween immature cotton and that which has suffered loss of vitality. 

Besides yielding a natural wool from which a tremendous number of 
products are derived, the seed of the plant gives forth a highly useful 
vegetable oil, and the stems and leaves are used for fodder. 


9 


Derivation 
of Names 


Botanical 

Types 


The 

Cotton 

Plant 


The Fibre 


Seeds 

and 

Stems 


! 


2. History and Distribution 


Ancient 

History 


Europe 


America 


Egypt 


India 


China 


Other 

Countries 


The origin of the cultivation and commercial use of cotton is shrouded 
in the dim veils of antiquity. The records of India show that the plant 
was grown, and its fibre utilized, from the earliest times. The Phoeni¬ 
cians and the Hebrews are known to have made cotton clothing, and later 
the art was transmitted by them to the Greeks and Romans. The vague 
annals of China indicate a familiarity with this plant and its value ex¬ 
tending back to the remote past, and the same is true of Japan. Cortez 
found a flourishing textile industry among the Aztecs in 1519, and in 
Peru, Pizarro found cotton garments said to antedate the civilization of 
the Incas. Again early Portuguese chroniclers relate the discovery of 
native cotton in Brazil. 

The Arabs and Saracens were largely responsible for the introduc¬ 
tion of the textile industries to western Europe in the ninth century, but 
it was not until about the middle of the seventeenth century that any 
great progress was made. During this time the British began to attempt 
the cultivation of cotton in their colonies, and it was about 1650 when 
the first Virginia plantations were begun. Since that time the United 
States has forged ahead until at present it grows over three-fifths of the 
world’s crop. 

The cultivation of cotton in Egypt was begun about 1821, American 
Sea Island seeds being imported at that time. The fertile alluvial soil of 
the Nile delta was found particularly adapted to this use, and extensive 
irrigation later expanded the area. Th& construction of the Great 
Assouan Dam late in the nineteenth century gave a tremendous impetus 
to the industry. Egyptian cotton is mostly of the long staple variety, the 
best, known as Sakellarides, averaging an inch and three-quarters. 

Cotton culture in India is perhaps the oldest of all, but Indian cotton 
is of the short staple variety, and can only be used by certain manufac¬ 
turers most of which are located in Japan and Germany. About twenty- 
five million acres are said to be under cultivation, but statistics are very 
meagre. 

China has long been a large grower of cotton, but the native species 
are of a harsh, short fibre. Korea and the Yangtze and Wei basins are 
the chief sources, and American cotton has recently been introduced in 
the southern provinces. 

Russia began to raise American cotton on a large scale in Turkestan 
only some twenty years ago, and bids fair to become a large producer. 
The plant is indigenous to almost all the Central and South American 
countries, and particularly in Mexico, Brazil and Peru, it has great 
potentialities. Peru has two kinds of native cotton known as the rough 


10 


and smooth varieties. The former is of a very long and tough fibre and 
is valuable because it can be blended with wool. 

The greatest part of the American crop consists of the Upland variety, 
although, as we have noted, there is a small but important crop of Sea 
Island in the Southern Atlantic states. Another long staple species, 
known as Pimas, has recently been introduced in Arizona, and the 
alluvial soil of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana has produced still 
other desirable species, locally known as “Rivers,” “Peelers,” and 
“Benders.” Before we consider the relative manufacturing' merits of the 
various kinds of cotton, it would perhaps be well to consider briefly 
how the crop is grown. 


3. Cultivation 

The cotton season of course varies in different latitudes, but the plant¬ 
ing is done everywhere in the early spring months. The proper care and 
fertilization of the soil and its preparation to receive the seed is of the 
utmost importance. The plant ripens in about four months, so that the 
picking season in this country usually begins in August, and continues 
until the first killing frost. From the time of the opening of the first 
bolls the cotton continues to grow, unless killed by drought or insects, 
until the cold puts a stop to vegetation, and the same stalk frequently 
contains ripe and immature cotton at the same time. The cotton which 
matures first and has been least exposed to weather when picked is likely 
to be freer of spots and discolorations than that which is picked at the 
end of the season. 

The two great enemies of the cotton plant are drought and insect 
depredations. Late frosts and the right quantity of rain and sunshine 
are what every cotton planter prays for, and praying is about all he can 
do in this respect. Not so, however, with insects. Unfortunately there are 
a great number of rapacious little creatures rendered particularly hardy 
by some caprice of Nature, to whom the growing cotton plant represents 
an especial delicacy. Against them the planters, under the guidance of 
the Department of Agriculture, are waging continuous warfare. It is 
said that insect depredation, at pre-war prices cost the country an an¬ 
nual sum of $60,000,000, more than half' of which is attributable to the 
two worst offenders, the boll weevil and the boll worm. Coming in 
hordes across the Mexican border, the boll weevil has destroyed mil¬ 
lions of bales of cotton annually, and as yet no very effective remedy 
has been found to exterminate it. 

Even at that, however, the planter’s greatest worry is perhaps not so 
much the growth as the harvesting of his crop. To get his cotton picked 


American 

Varieties 


Growth of 
the plant 


Enemies of 
the plant 


The Boll 
Weevil 


11 


Weather 

Defects 


Careless 

Picking 


Bad Ginning 


Grades 
Based on 
Condition 


The Full 
Grades 


Tinges and 
Stains 


“ Points ” 


rapidly and properly, an operation for which no successful machinery 
has yet been devised, and to have it properly ginned, presents his chief 
problem. If cotton is left too long on the stem it will be exposed to the 
detrimental effects of the weather. Coloring matter from the newly 
opened bolls, or from the soil, is washed into the floss by the rain, and 
while such spots or stains may be bleached out by the sun, the lustrous 
bloom never returns. Frost will make permanent tinges or stains, and 
the wind will frequently wrap the pendulous locks of fibre-covered seed 
about the stems of the plant or tangle them up in the leaves. 

When the pickers do not exercise proper care stem and leaves fre¬ 
quently get picked along with cotton, and a considerable quantity of dirt 
inevitably finds its way into their bags. Or else the cotton may be picked 
when it is damp, with the result that the teeth of the gin, instead of 
picking out the seeds and stems will cut the matted fibres, producing a 
class of cotton known as “Gin-cut”. Moreover the gin brushes will be 
unable to separate the matted tufts, and so they go into the bale as 
“naps” or “neps”. All these factors militate against the planter in his 
efforts to have his crop classified as high as possible. 


4. Grades and Staples 

The classification of cotton into the standard grades fixed by the 
Government constitutes an exceedingly difficult art. There is absolutely 
no mechanical basis, and the classification is a purely relative one. The 
kind of plant has no bearing whatsoever, nor has the length or strength 
of staple. It is really a distinction based upon the condition of the cot¬ 
ton, rather than upon its inherent attributes. 

The grade “MIDDLING” is the basis upon which the market values 
of the other grades are quoted. There are eight full grades: 

Fair Low Middling 

Middling Fair Good Ordinary 

Good Middling Ordinary 

Middling Low Ordinary 

Between these full grades, are the half grades, known as the Stricts, 
and some classers use quarter grades with which, however, we shall not 
concern ourselves here. The grades and half-grades are quoted for 
whites, tinges, and stains. A stain is a heavy discoloration while a tinge 
is a lighter hue, and partial discolorations, known as spots, are permis¬ 
sible in the lower grades of whites. The values of the various grades are 
always quoted as so many points on or off White Middling, a point 
being l/100th. of a cent. Thus, if Middling White were quoted at 24c 


12 


and Ordinary as 300 points off, it would mean that Ordinary was worth 


21c. An example is given 

below of a regular 

quotation sheet. 

U. S. Grades 

* White 

** Tinges 

** Stains 

Middling Fair . 


Nominal 

Nominal 

Strict Good Middling . 

. 328 on 

49 off a 

Nominal 

Good Middling . 


152 off a 

447 off a 

Strict Middling . 


300 off a 

618 off a 

Middling . 


456 off a 

809 off a 

St. Low Middling . 

. 305 off 

704 off a 

Nominal 

Low Middling . 

. 843 off 

1064 off a 

Nominal 

Strict Good Ordinary . . 

. 1230 off 

Nominal 

Nominal 

Good Ordinary . 

. 1518 off 

Nominal 

Nominal 


*U. S. Government differences. 

**Average of differences on New ^ork, New Orleans, Memphis and either the 
Savannah or the Augusta exchanges. 

It is obvious that in this classification the human element plays a 
great part. The difference between quarter grades, or even half grades, 
or between a tinge and a stain, are subject to a great variety of interpre¬ 
tations. While there is no definite standard, Middling must be cream or 
white, must show no soil evidence, no gin-cuts or naps, may have a few 
pieces of leaf (not powdered), and a few motes, (immature seeds). As 
the grades go up the cotton must be freer of impurities until the top 
grades have to show practically a perfect lustrous, silky, white, and 
clear fibre. On the lower side the impurities. increase, until, in the 
Ordinaries, we find large and small leaf particles, sticks, hulls, dirt, 
sand naps, gin-cuts, and spots, together with a dingy color. 

It is this classification that governs the trading on all the exchanges, 
and upon which the planter originally sells his crop. The exceptions are 
those varieties of cotton which are distinct from the crop as a whole. Sea 
Islands are sold as Fancy, Choice, Fine, Medium, and Common. Bolly 
or immature cotton is sold by separate agreements; and Linters, the 
fibres regained by the seed mills from reginning the seed, are not sold 
on this basis. Neither is what is known as the “City Crop” of loose cot¬ 
ton accumulated from taking samples, sold in this way. 

Aside from grade there are two other qualifications which are of 
equal importance to the manufacturer: length, and strength. Lengths are 
quoted in eights of an inch, and cotton under 1 y 8 " is termed short, while 
that over iy 8 " is long. The normal lengths run from to 1%", and it 
is noteworthy that, where a normal difference between grades would be 
25 points, the difference of %" would be about 250 points. “Pulling” 
for staple is another art where the individual’s judgment plays an im¬ 
portant part. 


The Human 
Element 


Proportion 

of 

Impurities 


Some 

Cottons not 
Sold on 

Middling Basis 


Staple 

Length 


13 











Elasticity 


Strength,—elasticity and tensile strength,—is again one of the mill’s 
prerequisites. The usual buyer’s test for fibre vitality is to compress a 
sample in the hand to see if it will return to its former shape. The im¬ 
portance of length is that it governs the fineness of the yarn to be spun, 
while grades affect the finish of the cloth. We shall see later that mills 
cannot buy mixed lots, but must have even-running grades of fixed 
staple. 


Storekeepers 
as Local 
Buyers 


Large 

Growers 


Intermediate 

Buyers 


Financing 

Early 

Stages 


5. Buyers of Raw Cotton 

The small planters of the South are usually unable to finance them¬ 
selves independently through the growing and picking seasons. Conse¬ 
quently the local store-keeper, from whom the planters buy their sup¬ 
plies, usually extends credit in the form of an open account and so 
becomes the first middleman. Not infrequently the store-keeper will ac¬ 
cept cotton rather than money in settlement of his accounts, and where 
he follows this practice he becomes what is known as a local buyer. 
When he has accumulated sufficient cotton he sells either to an inter¬ 
mediate buyer, or to the buyer for some merchant or mill. 

In the case of the larger grower, or the syndicate of growers, the local 
buyer is usually eliminated. These planters obtain their credit from the 
large merchant buyers, who in turn are carried by their banks. 

Very frequently the local buyers are scattered so thickly through a. 
neighborhood, and each accumulate such small and heterogeneous lots 
of cotton that an intermediate buyer finds his way into the natural order. 
Sometimes the intermediate is merely a “scalper” who buys from the 
local dealer and sells to merchant buyers. In other cases, notably in 
Texas, he acts as a concentrating agent, buying at local points from 
growers and selling, usually at compress points, to representatives of 
merchants or mills. In the latter case he is referred to as a “street 
buyer.” 

Where the grower surrenders his cotton to the local dealer the latter 
usually has it ginned, but in cases where the planter is able to finance 
himself he takes his cotton to the gin himself, pays for the ginning, and 
either sells in so-called gin bales, (before they are compressed) or, if a 
warehouse is available at the gin or compress point, holds his cotton 
until he can obtain a satisfactory price for it. The local banks perform 
a very important part of the crop financing at this stage, for, since the 
grower sells for cash, the buyers require advances. These are made by 
the Southern banks against buyers’ tickets, showing cotton purchased, 
against gin receipts, warehouse receipts, compress receipts, and finally 
when the cotton is shipped, against bills of lading. 


14 



The Square Bale 


The large cotton merchants fulfill a very essential function in that 
they are responsible for the concentration of the raw material and for 
its redistribution into the proper channels of manufacture. They main¬ 
tain branches and representatives throughout the entire cotton growing 
areas and are directly connected by wire with all the important ex¬ 
changes. By far the bulk of their buying is done after the close of the 
New York Exchange from local and intermediate buyers who during the 
day have been acquiring mixed lots of all sorts. The merchant’s repre¬ 
sentative, known as the take-up man, goes over and classifies the cotton 
accumulated by the local buyers, takes a sample* from each bale which 
he tags with a duplicate of the shipping tag he places on the bale itself, 


The Merchant 

Buyer’s 

Importance 


The Take-up 
Man 


15 




Even-running 
Lots from 
Compress 
Point 


Cooperative 

Marketing 


Direct 

Buying 


and then ships the cotton to the concentration point and the samples to 
the office at that place. He pays the local buyer by draft or check. 

The office at the concentration point, usually where there is a com¬ 
press, has in the meantime received instructions from the head office as 
to how to make up the various lots. As the bales are compressed they are 
collected into even-running lots of certain grades for which the head 
office has received inquiries from mills, and are shipped out in this way. 
The branch office will ship according to instructions forwarding the 
bills of lading with invoices and sight drafts to the head office or to 
some bank. 

Since the war, and particularly in the last three years, the co¬ 
operative movement has in some sections developed to such an extent as 
to supplant in large part the old system of marketing. In Texas, Georgia, 
and other States, a large part of the crop is now concentrated, financed, 
and sold through these extensive organizations of growers either direct 
to mills, or to large merchants and exporters. 

Almost all cotton is bought on Middling Basis, but some is taken on 
sample with guarantees, (often a dangerous practice for both parties), 
and some is taken at a fixed price per bale. 

A few Southern mills buy direct from nearby growers, but the pre¬ 
ponderant majority and practically all the Northern mills obtain their 
cotton through merchants, or through brokers representing Southern 
merchants. 

We have seen briefly how the cotton is grown and brought to market, 
but we have still to consider the all important question of what deter¬ 
mines the price at which it changes hands. 


6. The Cotton Exchanges 


"Spot” 

and 

“ Futures ” 


The Great 
Markets 


The New York 

Cotton 

Exchange 


Cotton trading falls roughly into two categories: trading in cotton for 
immediate delivery, or spot cotton; and buying or selling for delivery at 
some future time. Purchases or sales of spot cotton mean that cotton 
actually will be delivered from vendor to purchaser, but, as we shall see, 
trading in futures does not necessarily mean that the contract will he 
fulfilled by delivery. The great cotton markets are New York, Liverpool, 
New Orleans, Bremen, and Havre. Of these New York is almost entirely 
a futures market, while Niew Orleans is chiefly a spot market. Liverpool, 
Bremen, and Havre trade in both spot and futures, but Liverpool is the 
European centre for trading in future contracts. 

Only about 2% of the annual crop is sold spot in New York, and yet 
it is the prices on the New York Cotton Exchange which govern very 
largely the price paid to the grower in the South by the various buyers. 


16 


The New York Exchange is the barometer of the American, and to a 
large extent, of the world’s cotton trade, because its mechanism works 
out the equilibrium between demand and supply; and as this mechanism 
consists chiefly of the trading device called the “Hedge”, we shall di¬ 
gress for a moment to consider its operation. 

We might say that hedging is an insurance against fluctuations in cot¬ 
ton prices by purchase or sale of future contracts for cotton against sale 
or purchase made for actual delivery. It consists of nothing more than 
of neutralizing the gain or loss which will result from existing delivery 
contracts if the price rises or falls before delivery date, by creating an 
off-setting loss or gain. 

Assume, for instance, that a merchant makes a contract with a mill in 
July for 100 bales October delivery. He sells at the current price of let 
us say 30 cents per pound plus his overhead and profit. In due course he 
will obtain his cotton from the South, but in the meantime he covers, or 
hedges his contract by buying 100 bales of October futures on the Ex¬ 
change. If he has to pay the grower 31 cents for the cotton which he has 
sold to the mill for 30 cents, he will on the other hand, be able to sell his 
future contract which he bought at 30 cents for 31 cents, so that the loss 
on one is neutralized by the gain on the other. Vice versa, he will lose 
whatever extra profit he might have made from a falling price. 

In the same way a manufacturer may buy futures against orders he 
has accepted for goods, based on the price he expects to pay for his cot¬ 
ton. Or he may sell futures to protect himself on cotton he has bought 
but has not yet covered by cloth contracts. Hedging by manufacturers, 
however, particularly in the North, is not a common practice, because 
the cloth market is not elastic enough to follow accurately in the wake of 
cotton prices, and also because the mill treasurer rarely wants to hedge 
cotton in his warehouse, preferring to rely on his own judgment in mat¬ 
ters of purchase. 

Occasionally a grower may find it to his advantage to hedge his crop. 
If, for example, he is satisfied in August that the present price for De¬ 
cember is likely to be higher than he will obtain later, he may sell 
December futures for a conservative percentage of his crop, thereby 
guaranteeing himself against a drop. 

By far the greatest part of the future trading, however, is done by 
merchants, because they are actually engaged in the business of selling 
cotton which they have not yet acquired or of carrying cotton for which 
they have no contracts. Speculation, of course, enters into the dealings 
on the exchanges as an important economic factor, in normal times 
tending to stabilize by discounting future trends, but in periods of extra¬ 
ordinary demand or supply frequently causing violent fluctuations in 


The “Hedge” 


As Used 
by the 
Merchant 


By the 

Manufacturer 


By the 
Grower 


Speculation 


17 


The 

Dissemin¬ 
ation of 
Quotations 


New York 
Cotton Con¬ 
tract 


Buying 

Season 


prices. At such times there is always a good deal of agitation for preven¬ 
tive legislation, but it is unlikely that dealing in futures will ever be 
prohibited by law. The present regulations of the large exchanges elimi¬ 
nate abuse as far as possible, and the futures markets are really a factor 
of safety for the entire industry. 

All the large merchants, as we have seen, have branch offices in the 
South, and all these offices have wire connections with the chief markets. 
On the basis of the Liverpool quotations and the New York opening 
prices the head offices will send out to their branches and representatives 
their daily limits, above which they are instructed not to buy. Inasmuch 
as most of the small growers are dependent for their news of the 
markets upon the buyers, they are at somewhat of a disadvantage, but 
the keenness of competition prevents their exploitation by unscrupulous 
buyers. 

A contract on the New York Cotton Exchange calling for the delivery 
of 100 bales specifies Middling grade, but the seller may deliver any 
grades which are tenderable by the Exchange regulations. These grades 
are from Strict Low Middling to Middling Fair, but if tinged, not below 
Middling Tinged. Stains are not tenderable. The grades are determined 
and settlement made on the basis of so many points on or off Middling, 
which, as we have seen, is the basis for all quotations. 

It is evident that mills, which require certain even-running grades, 
could of course never buy their cotton on the Middling basis. For this 
reason, except in the few cases where they buy direct from the growers, 
mills purchase their requirements from dealers on the basis of samples. 
Selling to mills, as opposed to selling M/B, is known as selling on 
merit. Mills usually begin to buy in September and fill about 60% of 
their year’s requirements by January. Those manufacturers who use the 
high grades usually buy earliest because of the limited crop from which 
they must obtain their share. Cotton is ordinarily shipped soon after 
purchase and stored not by the merchant but at the mill. The recent 
growth of Southern warehouse companies, however, has caused mills to 
carry less cotton than formerly. Mills ordinarily pay for their cotton in 
three days. 

We have now traced rapidly how the cotton is grown and marketed, 
and our next concern will be to follow what happens to it during the 
process of making it into goods. Deferring for the moment considera¬ 
tion of cotton export from the United States, we shall proceed in Chap¬ 
ter Two, to glance at the various aspects of Cotton Manufacture. 


18 


CHAPTER II 


THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON 
1. History in the U. S. 

Much has been written on the subject of the textile industry and per¬ 
haps even more still remains to be said. It is not the object of this brief 
survey to present a complete picture of all the stages of manufacture, 
but rather to place briefly before the reader a necessarily kaleidoscopic 
view of the various processes. 

Although the first cotton mill in the United States was founded in 
Rhode Island by Samuel Slater in 1790, Whitney’s invention of the 
cotton gin in 1793 marked the real beginning of the cotton growing and 
manufacturing industries in this country, because it solved the hitherto 
vexatious problem of separating the fibre from the seed. Nevertheless, 
until the war of 1812, this country exported almost all of its cotton to 
Great Britain, and imported from there its cotton goods. The war stimu¬ 
lated the textile industry for two reasons: first, because no British goods 
were available; and second, because it brought about the transference 
of New England capital from ships and commerce to home manufactur¬ 
ing industries. The census figures for 1805 show 4,500 spindles in the 
country; in 1825 there were 800,000. 

Various inventions, notably Lowell’s power loom in 1814, and Jenck’s 
ring spindle in 1830, made it possible for the New England manufac¬ 
turer to compete with the skilled labor of England, and up to the time 
of the Civil War the industry made rapid strides. In 1831 795 establish¬ 
ments with 1,200,000 spindles used 77,800,000 pounds of cotton and 
manufactured $32,000,000 worth of goods. Thirty years later there were 
1091 mills with 5,200,000 spindles using 422,700,000 pounds of cotton 
and making a product worth $115,700,000. At this time 570 of the mills 
were in New England, 340 in the Middle Atlantic States, 159 in the 
South, and 22 in the Western States. The New England mills, however, 
averaged twice as many spindles as the others, and Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island alone contained 48% of the total. 

Home industries at this time supplied most of the coarse drills and 
sheetings, while the fine goods were imported from England. There was 
a small export trade of coarse goods to Asia. The Civil War cut off the 
industrial centers from their raw material so that for five years no 
progress was made, and when normal life was resumed a new tendency 
towards concentration became manifest. From then on the number of 
plants decreased and the individual establishment grew larger, so that 


Slater’s 

Mills 

Whitney’s 

Gin 


Stimulus of 
War of 1812 


Growth to 
1860 


Civil War 


19 


Rapid 
Industrial 
Rise of the 
South 


The Bale 


The Bale- 
Breaker 


The Opener 


in 1880 there were fewer mills and four and one-half times as many 
spindles as twenty years before. 

While we shall discuss the geographical distribution of the industry 
in a later chapter, it is worthy of note here that the feature of the period 
beginning about 1880 and extending to the present time, was the gradual 
growth of the spinning and weaving industry in the South. The social 
and economic system in the Southern states before the abolition of 
slavery made those states entirely agrarian, but as soon as a recovery 
from the war was accomplished, manufacturing, and particularly cotton 
manufacturing, grew up surprisingly fast. A glance at the growth in 
spindlage in the United States from 1880 to 1923 will suffice to illus¬ 
trate. Sixty per cent, of the increase since 1880 was in the South. The 
units represent millions of spindles. 


1880 1890 1900 1910 1923 Inc. 43 yrs. 

North . 10.1 12.6 14.5 17.4 19.9 9.8 

South.5 1.7 4.5 11.2 16.3 15.8 


2. Making Cotton Yarn 

Almost all cotton comes to the mill in standard compress bales of 
five hundred pounds gross. The cotton is condensed to about 22 pounds 
per cubic foot at the compress, wrapped in coarse jute bagging, and 
circled with iron hoops. For some time there has been a movement to 
improve the so-called square bale, or to replace it with a different form 
of packing. Sea Island cotton is frequently packed in a smaller round 
bale, and there is much to be said for this practice. What we are con¬ 
cerned with here, however, is that the mill receives the cotton in a com¬ 
pressed form which must be loosened before anything can be done 
with it. 

Accordingly, the first thing that happens is that the hoops are cut, the 
bagging removed, and the cotton thrown by hand into the feed-apron of 
the bale-breaker. This machine does nothing more than to pick the com¬ 
pressed cotton apart and deliver it in tufts about the size of a handfull 
on a belt conveyor. 

The travelling belt or feeder delivers these bunches of cotton into 
machines called Openers, which simply repeat the operation of the bale- 
breaker on a more thorough scale, reducing the large tufts into many 
smaller ones. These small pieces are dropped into an air chute and 
drawn along parallel rods up to the picker room. During transit in the 
trunk much of the heavier dirt falls between the rods and is removed. 

In the most recent installations larger bale-breakers are used which 
reduce the cotton to small tufts and deliver through an air pipe to a 


20 





Bale Breakers 


condenser in the picker-room. The condenser either empties into bins or 
else on to the automatic feed of the breaker-pickers. 

As the tufts come out of the chute they fall into the first of three ma¬ 
chines known as Pickers, whose function is to beat out the coarser im¬ 
purities and deliver the cotton in rolls of batting called laps. In the first, 
or breaker-picker the tufts are thoroughly whirled and pounded over 
grid-bars by rollers armed with short flail-like projections, and then 
compressed into a continuous sheet or lap of a given weight per yard, 
which is wound on a large spool and delivered to the second, or inter¬ 
mediate picker. This machine practically repeats the operation only that 


Pickers 
Remove 
Coarse Dirt 


21 




















Picker Room 


The 

Function 
of the 
Card 


it combines four laps from the first picker into one which it hands over 
to the last, or finisher picker. The latter again takes four intermediate 
laps and forms them into one sheet of fairly clean cotton, containing 
very little dirt or seed, but still fairly filled with small particles of leaf. 
In these preliminary operations the cotton has lost about five per cent, 
of its weight. 

Before anything else can be done it is now necessary to remove the 
leaf particles, and to separate the individual fibres from their matted 
position. Both these functions are performed by the machine known as 
the Card, the principle of which is that of two surfaces armed with fine 
wire teeth revolving not quite tangent to each other. Originally carding 


22 




FLATS 



PRINCIPLE OF THE FLAT CARD 


was performed by hand, but the Wellman carding machine was one of 
the earliest textile inventions. This was considerably improved by the 
revolving flat card in 1857, the operation of which is somewhat as 
follows. 

The lap from the finisher picker is fed over a plate on to a revolving 
cylinder bearing wire teeth, which combs it over a set of knives, thereby 
removing coarse dirt, and passes it on to a large cylinder armed with 
millions of fine wire teeth. The latter carries the cotton past a slowly 
revolving endless chain of flats which remove the neps and fine dirt. 
The clean, separated fibres are then picked off the cylinder by a smaller 
rapidly revolving roller called the doffer, which carries them in a filmy 
sheet to be in turn removed by the doffing comb. The latter, working so 
rapidly that the eye fails to see it, lifts the sheet of fibres clear so that 
it may be passed through a funnel and condensed into a single untwisted 
rope a little under an inch in diameter. This rope is called a sliver, and 
is automatically coiled into a can like an umbrella-stand. 

We have now for the first time reduced the raw material to a con¬ 
tinuous strand, comparatively free from impurities. Up to this point, no 
matter what kind of yarn is to be spun, the operations are practically 
identical, but from here on the processes vary according to the product 
desired. A hank of yarn is 840 yards (not to be confused with the 


Its 

Operation 


Counts of 
Yam 


23 








Feed End of Card. Lap Entering 



Delivery of Sliver 




























Drawing 


worsted hank of 560 yards) and the number of hanks it takes to make a 
pound is the basis upon which yarn is classified. Thus a coarse yarn 
which weighs only twenty hanks to the pound, would be called 20s, 
while 80s would be a very fine yarn. Various fabrics require different Two 
grades of yarn, just as different finenesses of yarn must be spun from Processes 
varying grades of cotton. The processes preparatory to spinning vary, 
not only with the counts to be spun, but with the use to which the yarn is 
to be put. Ordinary coarse and medium yarns for weaving usually fol¬ 
low one process, while fine counts for weaving, or knitting yarn, or 
coarse yarn made from long-staple cotton such as that used for tire- 
duck, go through a different preparation. The former are simply drawn 
and reduced, while the latter are in addition combed. 

In the ordinary process, which is by far the most commonly used, the First 
sliver from the card is put through successive similar operations, known Process 


25 




Roving Frame 


Drawing 


Roving 

Operations 


as drawing, the object of which is to draw out the fibres and cause them 
to lie parallel to each other. Six card slivers are fed together between 
two pairs of rollers, the second of which is revolving faster than the 
first. The obvious result of this is the stretching of that portion of the 
slivers which is between the two sets of rollers. The operation is usually 
performed two or three times, in each case combining six strands into 
one. The sliver delivered by the third drawing machine will be of the 
same diameter as the original card sliver, but will contain more or less 
parallel fibres. 

There remains now only one series of operations before the yarn is 
ready to be spun. The sliver must be reduced in size and given a certain 


26 





Four Stages of Roving 


amount of twist; these objects are accomplished by the roving frames, 
of which there are either three or four. The first, or slubber, passes the 
drawn sliver through rollers without combining, and winds it up on 
bobbins set in spindles. The sliver is twisted by being fed onto the bob¬ 
bin by an arm, or flyer, which revolves a little more slowly than the 
spindle, being drawn around after it. The result is a slightly twisted 
sliver, now called a roving, about the diameter of a clothes-line. 

The intermediate, fine frame, and jack frame,—or, if there are only 
three roving boxes, the intermediate and fine frames,—combine two rov¬ 
ings into one of smaller size and more twist. The mechanism is much the 
same, except that in each successive frame the spindles are smaller and 
revolve faster, until finally the thread is small enough to spin. 


Slubber 


27 









Second 

Process 


Lapper 


The Comb 


Drawing 


Doublings 


The Ring 
Frame 


Where it is desired to spin special kinds or very fine yarns twenty 
card slivers are usually combined in a machine similar to a drawing 
frame and known as a sliver-lapper. The twenty ends are drawn between 
rollers and delivered not as we should expect in one strand, but in a 
narrow band or lap, which is wound on spools. Four of these laps are 
again combined and drawn over a spiral surface in the ribbon lapper 
which delivers its product to the comb. The cotton is now in a band less 
than a foot wide, with fibres more or less parallel and practically clean. 
Since it is desired to spin a yarn which demands not only parallel but 
uniform fibres, the short fibres must be eliminated. 

There are a considerable number of combing machines in use at the 
present time, but their differences are mechanical rather than in the 
function they perform. The Heilmann principle is the most commonly 
used in this country. Eight rolls from the ribbon-lapper are placed in 
separate rests, or heads, end to end, and each lap is fed through rollers 
between teeth of a very fine and rapidly oscillating steel comb. Every 
back and forth motion, known as a nip, delivers about half an inch of 
filmy sheet from which the short fibres have been combed out. The eight 
combed sheets are then once more condensed into a single sliver and 
coiled into a cylindrical can. 

Following the comb there are usually two drawing frames, each com¬ 
bining six slivers into one, and these are followed by the three or four 
roving frames as in the other process. In the ordinary process the last 
roving as it leaves the jack frame has been doubled 27,648 times; in the 
combed yarn there are 2,959,120 doublings before spinning begins. 

Spinning proper is done either on the mule or the ring spindle. Very 
little cotton is spun on mules in this country, although mules are exten¬ 
sively used in Europe. We shall concern ourselves here only with the 
ring spindle, and that in bare outline. (See also Part Two, Page 83). 

The principle of the ring frame is very similar to that of the roving 
operations which immediately precede it. The thread is again drawn 
through two or three sets of rollers running at successively higher rates 
of speed, and then passes as shown on the accompanying sketch through 
a guide to a small metal loop, called the traveller, which runs around on 
a metal track or ring within which the spindle with its bobbin is revolv¬ 
ing. Since the spindle pulls the traveller around after it, the yarn is 
twisted or spun as it is wound on the bobbin. Sometimes two spools of 
roving are spun into a single thread, but more frequently there is no 
combination. All the rings on one frame, usually about 256, are moved 
up and down together on their spindles, so that yarn will be wound 
evenly on the bobbin. 


28 



Ring Twister 


TRAVELLE R?^ 
RING FRAME^v 


JfflT'HE 

GUIDE iRING FRAME 

’PRINCIPLE 




SPINDLE 



















Warp and 

Filling 

Bobbins 


Twisting 



Yarn of Filling Bobbin, Warp Bobbin, and Spool 


Not only is a different bobbin used for spinning warp and filling 
yarns, but they are also wound differently on the bobbin. Warp yarn is 
wound evenly up and down the whole length of the bobbin, while the 
filling bobbins, which go straight from the spindle into the shuttle of 
the loom, are wound on in sections to facilitate rapid unwinding. 

We have now proceeded as far as the finished yarn. Sometimes, how¬ 
ever, when a particularly strong thread is desired, or in case of fancy 
designs, it is desirable to twist two or more threads of yarn together, 
this being known as two-ply, three-ply, etc. Various effects are obtained 
by twisting different yarns together, and sometimes worsted and cotton 
strands are twisted together. The operation is done on a frame similar to 
the spinning frame. 


30 





The Barber Knotter 


In these and subsequent operations the Barber Knotter, a little device 
worn on the hand of the operative, has enormously increased efficiency. 
By a single motion an entirely unskilled girl can knot and cut off evenly 
the ends of two threads. 


3. Weaving Gray Goods 

The modern power loom represents one of the most remarkable 
achievements of industrial development. Into its perfection have gone 
the inventions and improvements of centuries, and volumes could, and 


The Barber 
Knotter 


Principle 
of Weaving 


31 






Spooling 


have been written on the subject of modern weaving. Nevertheless, the 
old-fashioned hand-loom has not yet gone out of existence, and still 
finds its use in the development of new designs. 

Weaving is, of course, the process whereby yarn is made into cloth, 
and its fundamental principle is that of the warp and weft structure. In 
its simplest form this means that a series of threads are stretched paral¬ 
lel to each other, thereby forming a warp. A second thread, called the 
weft, is then passed over the odd and under the even warp threads, and 
back again under the odd and over the even. In this way a cloth fabric 
will gradually be built up. In most cases the process has become consid¬ 
erably more complicated than this, but there are even now certain ma- 


32 





The Creels 




terials, such as calico, which retain the elementary weave. The actual 
weaving, that is, the passing of the shuttle carrying the weft thread over 
and under the warp threads, has now been reduced to an entirely auto¬ 
matic process, even with the most complicated designs, but the prepara¬ 
tory work still entails a large proportion of hand labor. 

The first operation consists of winding the yarn from the bobbin on Spooling 
to spools, each containing the same length of yarn. This must be done 
with care or considerable waste will result. 

The next step is to place these spools in a rack or creel where they 
fit on glass bearings so that they may be arranged in the proper order The Creel 
and run through the warper on to the section beam. The latter is a large 
roller several of which are combined to form a beam. The beam is the 
name given to the roller which is placed in the loom to deliver the warp 
threads. 

In order both to strengthen the warp threads and to make them 
smoother for weaving it is usual to apply some starchy or glutinous 
substance to them. This operation, which is performed in a machine 
called the Slasher, is termed yarn sizing, and consists of running the Sizing 
threads through a bath of preparation and then drying them quickly on 
a large steam-filled drum or can. One slasher will do enough work for 
200 to 500 looms. 


33 

















Healding 



The Slasher 


Since it is necessary that the warp threads may be lowered or raised 
in various combinations to allow the passage of the shuttle, each warp 
thread must be passed through an eye in the centre of a harness wire. 
Where, for instance, the warp is to be raised and depressed in three even 
sections there will be three harness frames, each fitted with enough 
heald-wires to accommodate one-third of the number of threads in the 
entire warp. In the Jacquard loom, used for intricate patterns, each 
warp-thread is separately controlled. The passing of the ends of the 
warp through their proper harness wires is a delicate and skilfull opera¬ 
tion known as healding, or drawing-in. At the same time that this is done 
the threads are passed through individual stop-motion wires, relaxed 
tension on any one of which will bring the loom to a stop. 


34 







Drawing In 


Closely connected with drawing-in, is the final step in the prepara¬ 
tion of the warp, and this is called reeding or sleying. In order to keep 
the warp threads in proper position during weaving they are passed 
through the wires of what looks like a comb with a strip across the open 
ends. This, the sley or reed, is attached to the batten on the loom and 
serves in addition to drive home each weft thread after the shuttle has 
passed. 

When the loom has devoured all the warp threads contained on one 
beam, all that is necessary, if the pattern is to be continued, is to tie the 
ends of the old warp to the ends of the new, and this is accomplished 
with marvelous accuracy by a little machine built on the same principle 
as the Barber Knotter. This avoids drawing-in a second time. 


Reeding 


Warp 

Tieing 


35 





































Weaving Shed of Power Looms 















When the preparatory processes have been completed the actual 
weaving is done, practically without human agency. The shuttle flies 
back and forth at the rate of from one to two hundred picks per minute, 
and when its thread is exhausted it drops out and, in the automatic 
loom, is immediately supplanted by a fresh one. The harness frames 
jerk up and down, forming and reforming the V shaped shed through 
which the shuttle passes; and after each pick the batten drives home 
the new thread into the ever-growing stretch of cloth. Like the film in a 
kodak, where a roller at one end gives out plain paper which is rolled 
up at the other end as a magic sheet of pictures, so in the loom the 
homely warp threads are rolled out at one end, while the roller at the 
other extreme winds up smooth gray cloth. 

We have now made yarn out of cotton, and unbleached cotton cloth, 
or gray goods, out of our yarn. All that remains before the fabric goes 
to the finisher is an inspection for imperfections and their removal 
where possible, usually by hand. 


4. Converting and Finishing 

Cotton cloth as it comes from the loom has a gray or yellowish ap¬ 
pearance due to the impurities it contains. The old-fashioned method of 
removing these consists in simply spreading the cloth in the sun for a 
few days until it is bleached white. Most cloth mills dispose of their 
goods in the gray and allow the finishing to be done by a separate estab¬ 
lishment, although the large manufacturers of “fancies” sometimes do 
their own finishing. 

The first step in the finishing plant is to inspect the cloth and then to 
sew the ends of many pieces together into long strips. This greatly 
facilitates subsequent operations, because the cloth can now be run 
through various processes as a single unit. 

In order to obtain a smooth surface for later processes, the cloth is 
first run through a machine which brushes up the fibres and loose ends, 
much as a carpet-sweeper picks up the fibres of a carpet. Sometimes a 
bladed roller like a lawn-mower is used. 

Removing the raised lint is a dangerous operation because it might 
easily damage the cloth, and this is usually done by the process of 
singeing. The cloth is run rapidly through gas flames or over hot plates 
and is quickly cooled. In this way the fuzz is burned off without in¬ 
juring the cloth. 

The next step is usually the bleaching process, except where the cloth 
is to he finished as a corduroy, velvet, or flannel. In the latter case it is 


The Power 
Loom 


Old-Fashioned 

Bleaching 


Sewing 

Together 


Brushing 


Singeing 


37 



. 


Inspecting 



Sewing Ends Together 


















Singeing 


first run through the napper, a machine which brushes up the fibre with 
wire teeth in such a way as to leave a raised face or nap. 

Bleaching is accomplished by boiling the cloth for several hours in 
large iron tanks known as kiers, which contain a solution of caustic 
soda. Next it is washed and scoured in dilute acid for several hours with 
the object of removing iron stains. Then it is again washed, boiled a 
second time, washed, run through a chemical solution of bleaching 
powder, and allowed to steep. After a last washing the cloth is dried by 
running over copper drums filled with steam, and is then rolled up in 
bundles about the size of a barrel. 

If the cloth is to be finished as plain white goods it is next starched 
and ironed (calendared), inspected, and put up in bolts for shipment. 

If, however, it is desired either to dye or print the cloth with various 
colors and designs, it still has several treatments to pass through. White 
goods are sometimes mercerized, but more commonly this process is 
employed with cloth that is to be dyed. Mercerization is the treating of 


Napping 

Bleaching 

Process 


White Goods 

Merceriza¬ 

tion 


39 




Dyeing 


Resist and 
Discharge 
Printing 



Napping 


cotton yarn or cloth to the action of caustic soda dissolved in water, the 
remaining soda being removed by a wash of dilute sulphuric acid. The 
result is an increased strength of fibre, loss of elasticity, silky appear¬ 
ance, and an affinity for certain dyes and mordants. 

The subject of dyeing is one of intense interest and wide scope, but it 
is unfortunately beyond the field of this brief survey. Suffice it to say 
that various chemical processes and mechanical devices are employed 
to give a permanent color to the cloth. (Yarn and raw stock dyeing are 
less commonly employed in the cotton than in the woolen and worsted 
industries.) 

Some cotton cloth is simply dyed with a solid color and finished, but 
frequently it is first dyed with one color and then printed with others, or 
with a chemical which will discharge the dye and leave white figures 
wherever it touches the cloth. In contrast to this discharge method, 
where it is desired to obtain white figures on a colored back-ground, it 
is also possible first to print the figures with a chemical that will resist 


40 






Bleaching Kiers 


the subsequent action of the dye-stuff. Where a white ground is used and 
it is not essential that the colors and design appear on both sides of the 
cloth it is not necessary to dye at all. ; 

The printing process is a very old one, and was employed centuries Printing 
ago in China and India, where natives used to impregnate cloth with Process 
colored designs by pounding small wooden blocks carved and filled 
with color on its surface. The modern printing machine has a series of 
copper rollers in which the design to be printed is etched or sunk. Under 
each roller where it is fixed in the printing press is a trough filled with 
the particular coloring matter which that roller is to print on the cloth. 

As the mechanism revolves the roller is constantly supplied with new 
color, which is scraped off its surface except where the sunken design 
holds it, by a knife, called the doctor. If the design calls for six colors 
there will be six rollers at work, and so on up to fourteen colors at a 
single run through the press. 

An infinite number of designs are printed, and the method of getting 
them etched on the copper roller is a fascinating one. A zinc plate is Engraving 


41 




The 

Pantograph 



Printing Machine 


carved by hand on a greatly enlarged scale from the original sketch, 
and from this plate the girls who operate the pantograph machines 
transfer the outlines of each color on to the copper rollers. 

When the roller is placed in the pantograph it is coated with varnish. 
As the girl traces the outlines of the design on her zinc plate with a 
little pointer, she presses a treddle which brings a number of little dia¬ 
mond points in contact with the roller. Each one of these points cuts 
through the varnish, reproducing the design in its original size. There 
will be as many points as the number of times the design is repeated 
across the roller. When the roller is finished it is given a bath in nitric 
acid which will eat into the copper where the varnish has been cut away, 
thus sinking the design so that it will hold color. 


42 













A Battery of Forty-eight 


There remain now only the finishing operations before the cloth is 
ready to be packed for the market. Usually, after printing, the cloth is 
steamed, or aged, to make the colors fast. Then it is fixed and soaped 
thoroughly, after which it is run through the drier. 

In order to give the cloth the proper “feel” an operation is next per¬ 
formed which closely resembles warp sizing. A certain amount of hot 
starch is pressed into the cloth, after which it is drawn through the 
tenter frames and not only dried but stretched back to its normal width. 
The tenter frame is about one hundred feet long and contains long lines 
of steam pipes. On each side an endless chain with clips grips the cloth 
and moving gradually further apart, these chains stretch the cloth, de- 


Aging and 
Washing 


Starching 


The Tenter 


43 




History 



Engraving Plate 


livering it dry and of even width. (Some goods, notably those made for 
Asiatic consumption in England, are not only starched but filled with 
China clay, which adds over 100% to their weight.) 

As it comes off the tenter the cloth goes through steel rollers and is 
pressed smooth, after which it is automatically folded and made ready 
for ticketing and packing. 

5. The Knitting Industry 

We have just seen by what processes cotton yarn becomes first gray 
cloth, and then finished goods. There is of course a tremendous variety 


44 








Transferring Design to Copper Roller 


of woven fabric, ranging all the way from the coarsest sail cloth to the 
finest organdie. And there are certain finishes such as velveteen and 
corduroy which, for want of space, we have not even touched upon. 
There is, however, a whole class of cotton fabric which is not woven 
but knit; and since most of our hosiery and underwear are made in this 
way, it behooves us to take at least a brief glance at the knitting industry. 

The principle of knitting is so familiar to every one who is or has a 
mother or wife that no description of it is necessary. Curiously enough, 
although the original stocking frame was invented as far back as 1589, 
power was applied to the industry for the first time at Cohoes, N. Y., in 
1832. This city is still the centre of underwear manufacture in this 
country. 


45 






Cloth in Tenter-frame 


Two Types 
of 

Machines 


The Flat 
Bed Knitter 


Knitting is now done on two general types of machines: the flat bed 
knitter, and the circular knitting machine. In the former the garment is 
knit in one flat piece and seamed afterwards. Underwear made in this 
way is described as full-fashioned. On the circular machine a seam is 
not necessary, for the complete cylinder of fabric is made at once. 
While it is possible to manufacture underwear on a circular frame, its 
use is far better adapted to the knitting of hosiery, and a very large 
industry for the manufacture of this product has grown up in and near 
Philadelphia. 

The Cotton Knitting Frame, invented in 1864, is still the basis of the 
modern flat-bed knitter. The product is a flat web which can be widened 
or narrowed by transferring the loops from the edge needles to a sep¬ 
arate instrument, and then replacing them. In knitting stockings, the 
shaped legs are made on one machine, then transferred to a heeler, and 
then to a third machine which knits the feet. The stockings then must be 
seamed up the back. The largest machines are capable of knitting 
twenty-four garments at one time. The advantage of this type is that it 


46 









Calendar 


produces more elastic fabric, but it requires more operatives and more 
highly skilled labor than the circular machine. 

A series of inventions made in Philadelphia from 1867 to 1889 per¬ 
fected the completely automatic circular machine of which there are 
now more than seven times as many in use in this country than there are 
full-fashioned knitters. The seamless machine goes on continuously and 
manufactures the entire garment at once. Narrowing is done by shorten¬ 
ing the loops, and this accounts for the loss of elasticity. 

The finishing operations consist of seaming, where necessary, and re¬ 
moving imperfections. 

The growth and importance of the industry is perhaps best realized 
from the fact that in 1870 there were 5,625 machines in the country, in 
1905, 88,374, and now well over one hundred thousand. In 1850 men 
wore hand-knitted socks and flannel underwear. From 1860 to 1910 the 
product of the country’s knitting machines rose from $7,300,000 to 
$ 200 , 100 , 000 . 


The 

Circular 

Machine 


Growth 


47 











Folding 


Cotton yarn is used more than woolen because it spins more cheaply 
and is less difficult to knit. 


Seed Oil 


Linters 

Felt and 
Surgical 
Dressings 


6. Other Cotton Products 

Before concluding this part of our survey which deals with the manu¬ 
facture of cotton into finished goods, we must at least enumerate some 
of the by-products and minor fruits of the industry. 

To begin with, at the time that the cotton is ginned the seeds are sold 
to the manufacturers of cotton oil. Without going into detail as to the 
process, we have here an annual product for this country worth $384,- 
000,000. Seed mills regin the seed before they crush it and remove the 
short fibres which have hitherto adhered to the seed. This regained cot¬ 
ton is known as linters and amounts annually to ubout 800,000 bales. 

Being of very short staple this reginned cotton is adapted for the 
manufacture of felts and surgical dressings, both of which are impor¬ 
tant by-products. 

The manufacture of small-wares and lace curtains is another minor 
branch of cotton manufacture. Here, however, domestic production is 


48 



comparatively small, and the bulk of the lace used is imported. Never¬ 
theless probably over 75,000,000 yards* of the lace are made annually 
in this country. 

Gun-cotton, a highly explosive substance, is obtained by soaking cot¬ 
ton (usually linters) in nitric and sulphuric acids and then leaving it to 
dry. And again, gun-cotton dissolved in ether and alcohol yields the 
much used surgical adhesive known as collodion. 

The stems and leaves of the cotton plant are used for fodder, the seed 
hulls for fertilizer, and there is in fact no part of the plant from which 
man has not learned to derive some useful product. 

*This figure is only roughly approximated. 

CHAPTER III 

FROM MILL TO CONSUMER 
1. Industrial Organization 

Before we proceed to discuss the various ways in which cotton goods 
are marketed we shall first take a cursory glance at the way in which 
the industry is subdivided. 

The president of a cotton mill is usually not the active head of the 
business; his position corresponds to that of the chairman of the board 
of directors in the usual banking or mercantile corporation. The mill 
treasurer is, on the other hand, the chief directive force, and he per¬ 
forms the two all-important functions of buying the mill’s raw cotton 
and selling its product, either direct or through other channels. In the 
mills of New Bedford and Fall River, which make chiefly gray goods, 
the treasurer usually has his office at the mill. In most other New Eng¬ 
land mills the treasurer is usually a member of a selling house and is 
frequently the treasurer for more than one mill. 

Where the treasurer has his office in the mill the man who has charge 
of the actual operation is known as the mill superintendent. His func¬ 
tions include the general management of the plant and the purchasing of 
supplies other than cotton. Where the^ treasurer maintains his office in a 
selling house, the operating head is known as an Agent and enjoys a 
greater degree of responsibility and independence. There are of course 
a varying number of minor operating chiefs in charge of sundry depart¬ 
ments. 

The average New England cotton mill contains about fifty thousand 
spindles, while the Southern mill runs about twenty-five thousand. The 
vast majority of mills do both spinning and weaving, although some 
Southern mills sell yarn and some Pennsylvania establishments do 


Lace 


Gun Cotton 


Collodion 


The Mill 
Treasurer 


The Agent 
or Supt. 


Spinning 
and Weaving 
in Same 
Plant 


49 


Segregation 
of the 
Converter 


Knitting 


a. 

Selling 

Direct 


b. 

Growth of 
the Selling 
House 


“ Fancies” 


nothing but weave. Of the entire number of spindles in the country, 
83%, and of the looms 97%, are in mills which do both spinning and 
weaving. 

In contrast to the tendency towards unification in spinning and weav¬ 
ing is the ever-increasing segregation of the converting plants. The rise 
of the merchant-converter, the growing demand for a great variety of 
finishes, and the fact that converting is very much cheaper on a large 
scale, have all brought about an increasing tendency on the part of the 
mill to sell its cloth in the gray, or to have it finished on commission. 

While a few large knitting mills spin their own yarn, this is the excep¬ 
tion rather than the rule. On the other hand the knitting mills finish 
their product for the market themselves, and sell either direct or through 
a selling house. 


2. The Distribution of Products 

There are four general ways in which a cotton mill may dispose of 
its products: a. by selling direct, b. through a selling house, c. through 
a broker, d. through a converter. 

A few very large mills maintain selling offices of their own in the 
large centers of distribution through which they market their goods di¬ 
rect to the jobbers and retailers. In most cases where direct selling is 
done, however, the goods are sold in the gray by the mill treasurer at 
the mill. This practice is common with those mills which make staple 
gray goods and which, when not sold ahead, are able to manufacture 
for stock against spot sales. A few Southern yarn mills also sell direct. 

The relation between the manufacturer and commercial banker or 
commission house is as old as the industry itself. Slater’s first mill in 
1790 was financed by Almy & Brown of Boston, who undertook to mar¬ 
ket his goods and also to furnish him the credit he needed to buy cotton 
and supplies. In the early days the cloth was sold at auction by the 
selling house and the proceeds less commission credited to the mill. 
Later on the factors developed extensive selling organizations through¬ 
out the country by means of which they were able to market the prod¬ 
ucts of a good many mills. 

The distribution of fancy goods requires a great deal of skill. The 
Fall and Spring lines to be manufactured by the mills are sent out to 
the trade by the selling house about six months ahead, and orders are 
taken before manufacture begins so as to be sure that the line will 
“take”. Of course there is always the danger of cancellations even then, 
for which the selling house must bear most of the responsibility. 

In addition to distributing the goods and guaranteeing the accounts, 


50 


the commission house renders financial assistance either by advancing 
on the mill’s product, or by indorsing its notes. In return it receives 
the sole agency for the mill’s products, interest on the money advanced, 
and a commission. The latter varies with the amount of financial as¬ 
sistance required by the mill and the desirability of the risk. 

As a general rule the Southern mills, because of their distance from 
the chief markets in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, are more 
dependent upon their selling agents than the New England manufac¬ 
turers. 

In New England a great number of manufacturers are amply able to 
finance themselves, and could if necessary sell their own products. 
Stock ownership, however, and old ties have frequently kept up the re¬ 
lationship with the selling houses after its usefulness was partly out¬ 
worn. Nevertheless in the selling of fancy goods, even where the mill is 
supplied with plenty of capital, the commission house fulfills a very 
necessary function. 

Gray goods are very often sold either by a mill or a selling house 
through the medium of a cloth broker. The latter is strictly a middle 
man in that he does nothing but bring together prospective purchaser 
and seller. In the event of sale he gets a commission of %%, which he 
often more than earns by his efforts. These brokers are in touch with all 
the mills, converters, and consumers. 

While there are some independent finishing establishments, most of 
them operate on a commission basis for merchant converters. The latter 
are a class of merchants of comparatively recent origin, having ap¬ 
peared first about 1880, since which time they have practically taken 
control of the finishing industry. They buy gray goods either direct 
from the mill, or through a broker or selling house, and have them fin¬ 
ished according to whatever they think the requirements of the market 
are. Inasmuch as they pay on short credit and carry the goods during 
conversion, frequently selling on several months’ credit to jobbers and 
retailers, they perform an important part of the financing of the cloth. 
Their recent rapid rise has been due largely to the growing demand for 
a multiplicity of seasonal designs. 

Some large cutters-up, and a few big mail-order houses do their own 
finishing or have it done. As a rule they buy from converters and sell to 
the jobber, retailer, or consumer. 

We have now traced the cotton from the seed through the various 
processes of manufacture and finishing, and followed the finished goods 
through the channels of distribution to the consumer. It remains only 
for us to compare briefly the position of the United States with that of 
other countries, and the position of the various sections within the 
United States. 


Finances 


c. 

The Broker 


d. 

Merchant 

Converters 


51 


CHAPTER IV 

THE POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 
1. Cotton Production and Consumption 

Ever since the Civil War the United States has produced more than 
half of the world’s cotton crop. From 1860 to 1900 about one-third of 
the annual crop was consumed by the domestic industries, and from that 
time domestic takings have increased, except for 1921, to an average of 
about 50% in the last few years. During the same period the actual size 
of the annual crops increased enormously. If we take the figures from 
the present back to 1790 it will give a rough idea of the progress since 
that time. 


Year 

Crop in bales 
(of 500 lbs.) 

Exports 

°/o of dom. takings 

1790 

3 

1 

66 

1850 

2,136 

1,854 

13 

1860 

3,841 

615 

84 

1870 

4,024 

2,922 

28 

1880 

6,356 

4,453 

30 

1890 

8,562 

5,850 

32 

1900 

10,266 

6,806 

33 

1910 

12,005 

8,205 

32 

1915 

12,122 

6,405 

47 

1917 

12,428 

4,587 

64 

1919 

12,028 

6,760 

44 

1921 

8,351 

6,479 

23 

1922 

10,369 

5,049 

52 


(Expressed in 

thousands of bales) 



52 


WORLD'S COTTON PRODUCTION WORLD’S COTTON PRODUCTION 

1908 1922-3 




WORLD’S COTTON CONSUMPTION 


1908 



WORLD'S COTTON CONSUMPTION 

1922-3 



53 










THE INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE BANK, INC. 
AND THE COTTON TRADE 


The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., offers to 
Cotton Exporters a unique service. It is not only equipped 
to finance shipments to all parts of the world, but, because 
of the fact that it has as shareholders the leading banks and 
bankers of Europe, it is in a position to obtain unusual ser¬ 
vice, advice, and information for its clients. 

The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., is constantly 
in touch with conditions abroad, and maintains extensive 
credit files on European cotton merchants and spinners. It 
not only finances millions of dollars of cotton exports every 
year for its domestic clients, but opens credits for an even 
larger amount in favor of American shippers by order of its 
clients abroad. 

The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., deals actively 
in foreign exchange, and by reason of the large orders it re¬ 
ceives from abroad, is often in a position to purchase foreign 
currency drafts of cotton shippers at exceptionally fine rates. 


55 




PART TWO 


WOOL 


By 

James Paul Warburg 

Vice-President 

International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 


Photographs by courtesy of 
The American Woolen Co. 



Grad ing jl eeces 








CHAPTER I 
THE RAW MATERIAL 
1. Sheep Raising 


The raising of sheep goes so far back into primitive times that histo¬ 
rians have been compelled to draw a veil over its origin. Whether sheep 
ante-date man, or man existed before sheep, is a question that has never 
been authoritatively answered. For our purposes very little history will 
suffice. We know that sheep were raised in Biblical times, but we do not 
know much about them. We do know, however, that the old Romans 
practised sheep-breeding with great care and even went so far as to 
cover their animals with cloth in order to preserve the clean quality of 
the fleece. During the reign of the Roman Emperor, Claudius (A. D., 
50), an Italian named Columella, took several Italian sheep to Spain 
and crossed them with the native Spanish Merino breed. It is said that 
the resulting type is the progenitor of all the Merino breeds which now 
form the basis of sheep-breeding. Under the rule of the Saracens, Spain 
became not only a great sheep-raising country, but a woolen manufac¬ 
turing country as well. In the thirteenth century there were no less than 
sixteen thousand looms in the town of Seville alone. 

When the Saracens were driven out by Philip III. the textile industry 
disappeared from Spain, but sheep husbandry, which did not require 
skilled labor, remained, and Spanish wool continued to be the finest in 
the world. 

During the eighteenth century various European countries began to 
import merinos and cross them with their native breeds. This, because 
of the sturdy quality of some of the native types, frequently produced 
excellent results. In France we thus have the origin of the Rambouillet 
merino, in Germany and Austria of the Saxony and Silesian breeds. In 
1810 merinos were first introduced into Australia with astonishing re¬ 
sults both as to grade of wool and increase of flocks. About the same 
time South America, South Africa, and the United States imported Span¬ 
ish sheep. Of all the highly civilized countries, England is the only one 
where merino breeding was not successful. This was due in part to the 
climate, but the chief cause was the fact that British sheep-raising was 
primarily for mutton purposes, and only secondarily for wool. The 
merino types are smaller, and hence do not yield as good mutton car¬ 
casses as some of the native “Down” and “Mountain” breeds. In many 
cases, however, the native English breeds, notably the Lincolns, have 
been imported to other countries and there crossed with merinos with 
very good success. 

It would not be possible to give in detail the various breeds of sheep 
existing in different countries. Merino sheep are now bred in many parts 


Early History 


Spain 


Europe 


Spread of 
Merino 


Native 

Breeds 


59 


Sources 


U. S. 
Domestic 


T erritory 


of the world, and, together with the high crossbreds, are the source of 
all the fine wools known as merino, half-blood, and three-eighths wools. 
Long wools are derived from various native breeds, chiefly English, and 
from the lower crossbreds of merinos, such as quarter and low quarter 
bloods. Chinese, Siberian, and Turkish wools, as well as many other 
uncivilized types, are usually very long and coarse, and are known as 
carpet and braid wools. 

Most of the best merino wools come from Australia, the next best 
from South Africa, and from South America. The latter have one 
fault in that they contain many spiral burrs which are difficult to re¬ 
move, and which frequently get through the machines and show up as 
imperfections in the cloth. Europe grows some very fine short wools, 
but these hardly ever leave the countries they are grown in. 

United States wools are known as “domestic” and “territory.” Domes¬ 
tic wools are those grown in the eastern and middle western states, not¬ 
ably in the Ohio valley. These contain the highest grades of merino 
wools grown in this country. It must be remembered that sheep raising 
began in the East, and as civilization expanded, was gradually crowded 
further and further westward. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 
made available the fertile pasture lands of the Ohio valley. The Ohio 
Canal eight years later opened up still more territory, and in 1849 dur¬ 
ing the famous gold rush, sheep were first taken to California. 

The territory wools are those grown in the Rocky Mountain Plateau 
states. Recently, with improved methods and greater care in breeding, 
some very fine wools have been derived from Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, 
and Montana, and from a few other states. The Texas and California 
wools are usually classed separately, because they are in most cases 
clipped twice a year. A little later we shall discuss the various grades 
and sorts of wool obtained from the different breeds, but as the wool is 
shorn or pulled before it is graded, we shall take up these processes first. 


AVERAGE WEIGHTS OF DIFFERENT BREEDS OF SHEEP WITH 
WEIGHTS OF FLEECES 


Breed 

Ewes 

Pounds 

Rams 

Pounds 

Fleece 

Pounds 


Leicester 

185 

235 

10 


Cotswold 

200 

285 

12 


Lincoln 

250 

300 

15 


Southdown 

145 

200 

6 

English Breeds (Mutton) 

Shropshire 

165 

215 

9 

Oxford 

220 

275 

11 


Hampshire 

200 

275 

8 


Rambouillet Mer. 

155 

235 

18 


Amer. Merino A. 

105 

145 

22 


“ “ B. 

110 

155 

20 

Merino Breeds 

“ “ C. 

(delaine) 

125 

175 

18 



60 




2. Shearing and Marketing of Fleece Wool 

Wool is obtained from the sheep in two ways; it is either shorn from 
the live animal, or pulled from the skin of the slaughtered carcass. 

Shearing was formerly done by hand. An expert was able to clip as 
many as one hundred head per day, but the average was less than half 
of that amount. The introduction of machine shearing has made it pos¬ 
sible for one man to shear from 175 to 200 sheep in a day, and the fleece 
is very much more evenly clipped than formerly. Some merino breeds, 
known as type A, have so many folds of loose skin that machine shear¬ 
ing is not feasible, but except for these animals, and some of the type B 
or Rambouillet Merinos, almost all sheep are now shorn by machine, 
that is, where they are raised in numbers. Sheep raising in this country 
is not pursued with nearly so much care as, for instance, in Australia. 
There they have huge shearing sheds where the animals are first sweated 
and then carefully shorn. Whereas here the entire fleece is left in one 
piece, in Australia the belly is shorn separately and each fleece is care¬ 
fully skirted, that is, the inferior parts such as the britch are torn off. 
Then each fleece is folded and tied up and the fleeces are put up in bales. 
Moreover, a bale usually contains fleeces of the same grade, so that 
practically nothing but sorting remains to be done by the purchaser. 
Here, on the other hand, fleeces are shorn in one piece and are folded 
up carelessly, without skirting. The tying up is frequently done in a 
slovenly manner, and a bag will very often contain all grades of wool 
from the finest to the coarsest. Of late years some attempt has been 
made to install the Australian system, but without much success. 

The shearing season in the northern hemisphere is in the spring, in 
countries below the equator, except Australia, it is, of course, in our 
fall. In Texas and California, as well as in some other localities, shear¬ 
ing is frequently done twice a year. 

Roughly speaking, there are seven ways in which the wool grower 
may dispose of his fleece wool: 

1. He may sell it to buyers representing merchants. The merchant, 
while he is a middle man and therefore incurs the usual anathema, per¬ 
forms a variety of very essential services. At the time of the clip he sends 
his buyers to the wool producing centers and buys the clip for cash, then 
he ships it to his warehouse, grades it, and sells to the mills on credit. 
Obviously he finances a very important part of the production, and is 
furthermore essential, because he knows the demand, which the wool- 
grower does not, and the supply—of which the mill is usually ignorant. 

2. The wool grower may also sell to buyers representing mills. He 
likes to do this because he eliminates the merchant’s profit, but, as a 
matter of fact, there are only very few mills large enough to stand the 


Shearing 


Australian 

System 


Seasons 

Marketing 

Merchant 

Buyers 

Mill 

Buyers 


61 


Consignment 


Local Mills 


Local 

Dealers 


Coop. Sales 


Auctions 


Markets 


buying expense, and even fewer that can afford to buy their whole sea¬ 
son’s supply of raw material at one time and for cash. Also, mills can 
usually employ only certain grades of wool, and cannot therefore as a 
rule buy a whole clip. 

3. If the grower thinks that he is not receiving fair offers from the 
visiting buyers, he will frequently consign his wool to a merchant to be 
sold on commission for his account. In this case he may or may not get 
a better price, but it costs him his carrying charges plus commission. 
There are some wool houses that make it a specialty to execute commis¬ 
sion sales of this nature. 

4. Some wool is sold direct to nearby mills. This is done particu¬ 
larly in Ohio, where many of the smaller mills obtain their entire re¬ 
quirements in this manner. 

5. Wool growers sometimes sell to local dealers. This is particularly 
prevalent in regions where the individual grower’s production is small. 
In most eastern states there are a great number of small farmers who 
grow a certain amount of wool. The local dealers are in many cases also 
the general store-keepers, and, since they are the farmer’s creditor on 
other merchandise, and since the average farmer knows very little about 
the grades of wool, these individuals very frequently turn a handsome 
profit when they in turn sell to the visiting buyers. 

6. Some wool is sold through farmers’ co-operative sales agencies, 
but these organizations have in the past been so poorly administered, 
that, as a general rule they have not been successful. The movement is, 
however, gaining ground and has shown great progress during recent 
years. 

7. Finally, there remains the method whereby almost all the British 
and colonial wools are sold, namely, by auction. Auction sales have 
been established for almost a century in London, Liverpool, Antwerp, 
Bremen, Hamburg, Marseilles, and recently in Australia. This method 
of disposing of their raw product does not, however, appeal to the 
American growers, because of the inherent American trading instinct. It 
is also not very feasible in this country, because the wool is not graded 
in the shearing sheds and because sheep-raising in not standardized. 

The chief markets for wool in this country are Boston, Philadelphia, 
Chicago, New York and St. Louis. 

3. Pulled Wool 

We have above discussed the shearing and marketing of wool ob¬ 
tained from the living animal. There remains a large quantity of wool 
which is taken from the pelts of slaughtered sheep. In 1919 there were 


62 


produced 48,300,000 pounds of pulled wool in the U. S. as against 
265,939,000 pounds of sheared wool. 

Skin wool, or tanner’s wool, as it is sometimes known, is used exten¬ 
sively for soft twist yarns, bed blankets, flannels, felts, etc. It is also 
used as an admixture in blends for top-making, as we shall see later. 

There are three methods whereby pulled wool is obtained. 

The oldest and simplest process is known as sweating, and consists 
simply in sweating the hides until the wool is loosened and can easily be 
pulled out. The disadvantage of this method is that it injures the hides. 

The lime process consists in loosening the wool by painting the flesh 
side of the hide with lime. This also injures the hides somewhat and has 
a bad effect on the dyeing qualities of the wool. 

The depilatory process is the best, and varies from the lime process 
only in that a solution is used instead of lime. This mixture consists of 
sodium sulphate, sulphuric acid, and oyster shells. 

By far the greatest pullery in the world is situated at Mazamet, 
France, where the industry has assumed gigantic proportions. The large 
packers in this country all operate their own pulleries, and the pulled 
wool is marketed largely by them. Most mills buy their pulled wool 
direct from the pulleries, but some is handled by merchants. 

4. What is Wool 

We have now traced the wool from the sheep’s back as far as the bag, 
and may assume that the bag has travelled from the shearing shed to 
the merchant’s or mill’s warehouse. Some foreign wools, notably Aus¬ 
tralian and South American, are, as we have seen, skirted and roughly 
graded in the shearing shed, so that, when the bag is opened, there re¬ 
mains only the sorting to do. Grading is the separation of fleeces into 
classified groups. Skirting is the removal from each fleece of the worst 
parts, namely, the britch wool, manure locks (known as tags), and 
matted or kempy portions. Sorting is the dividing of the individual 
fleece into various classifications. 

Before we take up the grades and sorts in detail, it will be well for us 
to inquire briefly into the nature of the wool fibre. In the first place, 
wool differs from hair in that its fibre consists of a core (medulla), a 
pulp (cortex), and an epidermis. A hair follicle consists of a medulla 
and an epidermis. Moreover, the epidermis of a hair is closely and even¬ 
ly scaled, which makes it smooth and lustrous. The surface of a wool 
fibre is not evenly serrated, which accounts for the felting, or interlock¬ 
ing, quality. Wool in which there is insufficient moisture and natural 
grease (yolk) frequently becomes felted at the ends. Such wool is vari- 


Use 


Sweating 


Lime 


Depilatory 


Wool as 
Against Hair 


63 


Shrinkage 


Qualities 

Desired 


ously referred to as cotted, cotty, or brashy. The tensile strength of a 
wool fibre is low, its elasticity high. The length of the fibre varies from 
one to over ten inches, and the diameter from .0018 to .004 inches. The 
better a wool the less like it is to a hair. Generally speaking, the finer 
the wool, the shorter the fibre, but length alone would not indicate the 
grade. Pure merino and high cross-bred wools have a close wave, known 
as crimp, which increases the elasticity and is therefore desirable from 
a spinning standpoint. 

The chemical composition of wool is: carbon 50%, hydrogen 7%, 
nitrogen 18%, oxygen 22%, and sulphur 3%. It is soluble in alkalies, 
and at a temperature of 130° C. will reduce to powder. 

Wool before it is scoured contains a large quantity of yolk, or natural 
grease, and also, besides dust and vegetable matter, a considerable 
amount of dried perspiration, or suint. The amount of weight lost 
through the removal of these substances when the wool is scoured is 
termed shrinkage. It will be readily appreciated that this is a very im¬ 
portant factor in connection with the purchase of grease wool. The per¬ 
centage of shrinkage varies from 20% to 80%. Nevertheless a good 
buyer will often be able to estimate within one or two per cent. The 
factors to be considered in this connection are the breed, the soil, the 
climate, and the care with which the sheep are raised, as well as the dili¬ 
gence with which the fleeces are put up. Fine wools always shrink more 
heavily than coarse; and pulled wools, since they are washed and 
brushed during the process, show a very much lower shrinkage than 
fleece wools. The average shrinkage of United States wools is about 
55%. Fine domestics shrink about 6( . Lower grades about 45%. Fine 

territory wools about 65%; lower grpLtis about 55%. Pulled wool aver¬ 
ages about 27%. Fine Australian wools average 49%, for, although 
they are the finest, the fleeces contain less dirt. Cape wools about 62%, 
and South American about 51%. 

The qualities looked for in wool are roughly six, and they vary ac¬ 
cording to the purpose for which the wool is to be used. 

1. It must be fine enough to spin the required number of counts. 

2. It must be strong enough to withstand strain of manufacture. 

3. It must have the proper staple (length). 

4. It must be of a certain softness or hardness. 

5. It must have the proper felting qualities if the material is to be 
fulled. 

6. It must either scour white, or else have sufficient lustre to take 
dyes. 

As we take up the manufacture of worsted and woolen yarns we shall 
see how these qualifications play a different part in the two processes. 


64 



Sorting Wool 


At the outset the only impo difference we are concerned with is 
staple length. Generally speaking, wools under two inches are too short 
to be combed and are classed as clothing wools. Clothing wools are used 
for woolens, combing wools for worsteds. This applies only to wools of 
fine fibre. The mere fact that a wool has long staple length does not 
make it a combing wool. As a rule, the coarser the wool the longer its 
staple, and the longest wools are the exceedingly coarse “common” or 
“braid” wools, which can only be used for carpet manufacture. 

In grading and sorting, practically the only guide is the fineness of 
the individual fibre. The other qualifications just enumerated have a 
very important bearing on what the wool can be used for, but they have 
very little to do with its classification by grades. 

Fleece wools are graded by two systems, one by bloods, the other by 
counts spun. (This means the number of hanks of 560 yards each to a 
pound of yarn.) Domestic and foreign wools are usually graded by 
bloods. U. S. Territory wools are graded a little differently, as per sec¬ 
ond column below, and pulled wool is only roughly graded into four 


Clothing 

and 

Combing 


Classifi¬ 

cations 


65 











Grading 


Skirting 


Sorting 


Off-sorts 


classes (third column). The blood classifications originated from the 
breeding of the sheep, but, as a matter of fact they have become arbi¬ 
trary terms denoting a certain degree of fineness. The same fleece may, 
and frequently does, contain %, and blood wool. 


COMPARATIVE GRADES 


U. S. Domestic 

U. S. Territory 

Pulled 

U. S. Counts Spun 

Foreign Counts. 

Full blood (XX) 

Fine 

AA 

60s 

66-74s 

% “ (X) 

% 


50s 

60-66s 

y 2 “ 

y 2 

A 

40s 

54-60s 

% “ 

% 

B 

36s 

48-54s 

% “ 

% 

B 

32s 

44-48s 

Low a /4 

Low *4 

C 

20 s 

40-44s 

Common 

Common 

C 

16s 

36-40s 

Braid 

Braid 

C 

12s 

32-36s 


When a bag of domestic wool is opened the fleeces are taken out one 
by one and put into baskets according to the grades in the first column. 
The grader simply decides what the majority of the fleece is and puts it 
into that class. When he has filled a basket with, let us say, half-blood 
fleeces, this basket is given to a sorter. He takes each fleece, shakes it out, 
and, first of all, skirts it. Then he separates it into the various sorts it 
contains. Fleeces graded as half-blood will probably sort into mostly 
half, some fine (full-blood), and a considerable quantity of three- 
eighths blood. The best wool comes off the shoulders, then the sides, 
then the back, then the thighs, and finally the britch and belly. Usually 
a fleece will not contain more than three sorts. 

If this were a bag of Australian, South American, or Cape wool, the 
fleeces would in all probability have been bagged according to grades, 
so that only the sorting operation would have to be performed by the 
merchant or the mill. 

When the wool has been sorted it is put into bins, and may now be 
said to be ready for the first of the manufacturing processes for which it 
is destined. Sorting is sometimes done by the merchants, but more fre¬ 
quently by the manufacturers. 

Kempy or cotted pieces, tags, stained or painty wool, etc., are called 
off-sorts, and these are put through a number of processes for the pur¬ 
pose of reclaiming as much of the wool as possible. 


66 



Scouring Machine 


CHAPTER II 

WORSTED MANUFACTURE 
1. Scouring 

When the wool has been graded it is sold either to worsted manufac¬ 
turers or to makers of woolen goods. The two industries are entirely 
distinct and separate. 

The first cog in the worsted machine is the wool comber, or top- 
maker. Sometimes he buys assorted grades, known as matchings, from a 
wool merchant; sometimes he buys and sorts his own wool; but most 
frequently he sorts and combs the wool on a commission basis. Many of 
the big worsted mills do their own sorting and combing. 

Tops are usually made from blends of various kinds of wool, and Blending 
this blending is done after sorting, before the wool is scoured. 

Scouring is nothing more or less than a glorified washing. A machine 
closely akin to a gigantic laundry machine removes first the yolk or Scouring 



67 










Opens 

Fibres 



Worsted carding Machine 


grease in an alkaline solution, and then rinses out the dirt and suint in 
a series of soap and water baths. The last bath is pure water, and from 
this the wool is taken on a belt through the drier. From the drier it is 
usually blown through tubes to the carding room. 

Approximately 20% of the moisture is allowed to remain in the wool 
in order to facilitate subsequent processes. If the wool is still warm it is 
easier to card. 

% 2. Carding 

The purpose of the carding operation is to open out the fibres in the 
wool. Originally, carding was done by hand with two leather surfaces, 
much like butter pats, the inner faces of which were studded with wire 
nails. Between these two surfaces the wool was rubbed until all the 
fibres were opened out. In woolen manufacture carding is more violent 
and seeks to lay the fibres in all directions. Worsted carding aims to 
separate the fibres, but also to keep them as closely parallel as possible. 


68 








Woolen card. Condenser end 
















Back Washing 


The carding machine is somewhat similar to that used for cotton (see 
The Card page 22). The wool is automatically fed between the feed rollers, which 
revolve in opposite directions and are armed with heavy teeth. From 
the feed a roller known as the licker-in starts the wool on its course over 
a number of cylinders, each of which is surrounded by several toothed 
rollers known as workers. Each worker has a smaller companion roller, 
revolving at a higher speed, which derives its name of stripper from the 
fact that its function is to take the wool off the worker and deliver it to 
the next worker. The last roller, known as the fancy, raises the wool off 
the cylinder to be caught by the doffer. The doffing-comb lifts the wool 
in a filmy sheet of fibres, which is condensed into a thick untwisted rope 
by passing through a funnel on to the balling-head. This rope, which is 
about an inch and a half in diameter, is known as a sliver. A certain 
length of it is automatically rolled into balls and these are taken into 
the back-wash room. From a loose unrelated mass the wool has now 
been transformed into a continuous strand of more or less uniform 
diameter. 


70 







Gilling before combing 


3. Backwashing and Gilling 

A back-wash machine takes several of the carded slivers and com¬ 
bines them into one. The slivers pass through several baths which rinse 
them thoroughly and are then slowly drawn through a drier. The proc¬ 
ess is quite similar to scouring, except that it is very much less violent. 

As the slivers come out of the drier they are fed through a number of 
gill boxes. The gill box is the first of a long series of drawing opera¬ 
tions. In this, and all the following stages of open drawing, there are 
always several slivers being combined into one and drawn out until the 
resulting sliver has about the same or a smaller diameter than the ones 
fed into the machine. The principle of the gill box is quite simple. 
Several slivers are fed in between rollers revolving at a comparatively 
low rate of speed. As they pass through they are flattened out over what 
is known as a faller. This is armed with very fine close wire teeth which 
come up through the fibres and the draft is imparted when the wool is 
taken off the faller by a final pair of rollers which are revolving con¬ 
siderably faster. The sheet of wool which emerges from these rollers is 


Combining 
and Drawing 
Slivers 


71 










Removes 

Short 

Fibres 



Gilling the top 


again passed through a funnel and thereby condensed once more into a 
sliver. This operation is repeated from two to four times, according to 
the quality of the top desired, and the methods employed by the particu¬ 
lar mill. 

Where very coarse long fibred wool is to be worked there is no card¬ 
ing, and the wool is prepared by straightening the fibres into a sliver 
through a series of gill-boxes. 

At some point during the gilling process a slight amount of oil is 
usually dropped onto the sliver, as this facilitates combing. 

4. Combing 

The next operation, namely that of combing, is again simple when 
viewed as the primitive manufacturing process. The old comber would 
take a short length of sliver, hang it on a nail by tying one end together 
and then proceed to comb out the short fibres much as one may comb 
out the dead short hairs from a dog’s coat. Combing is simply the re¬ 
moval from the sliver of the short fibres which would not spin properly. 


72 





The Noble Comb 


These short fibres are known as noils and are the waste product of top¬ 
making. The top is a continuous untwisted strand of long wool fibres 
made parallel by the comb. (By long fibres we mean fibres which are 
relatively long. Some tops consist of fibres less than an inch and a half 
in length. In this case, which is very infrequent, the noil would be even 
shorter.) 

Noils are sold either to woolen or knitting mills direct by the top- 
maker, or else to a merchant who disposes of them. 

The Noble circular comb is the most generally used combing ma¬ 
chine. Other types are the Lister, the Holden, and the Heilmann. The 
Noble comb is a compact circular structure standing at a height of about 
three feet from the floor, with a steam box underneath it. (Heat greatly 
facilitates the process.) There are two smaller circles inside the main 
circumference which are tangent to the outer circle at opposite points of 
its diameter. All rotate in the same direction. Seventy-two slivers are 
rolled up in creels on the outside of the main circle and are automati¬ 
cally fed on to the tangental points. A dabbing brush pushes the slivers 


Noils 

The Noble 
Comb 


73 






Gilling the 
Top 


Drawing 


French 


English 


Spinning 


down between the points of the two circles. As the circles draw apart 
the long fibres are left protruding from the inner edge of the outer 
circle and the outer edge of the inner circles. They travel thus until they 
are gripped by vertical rollers set to catch them. After passing the 
rollers the wool is lifted off the pins of the circles by knives. The four 
ribbons of combed fibres (two from the outer and one from each of the 
inner circles) are condensed into a single beautiful even band which 
coils itself softly into a revolving can. What remains is the waste or noil. 

The top, as it comes from the comb, is again put through a series of 
several gill boxes with the object of further drawing it out. Once again 
several slivers are combined into one in each process. At the end of this 
gilling the top is coiled in balls and allowed to rest. 

We have now reduced the wool to its real worsted basis. The noils 
have been taken out, and the balls of top are ready to be sent to the 
spinner to be spun into worsted yarn. 

5. Spinning 

The first processes in a spinning mill very closely approximate the 
last operations in the combing plant. The tops are usually gilled several 
times before weighing, and then are put through several drawing ma¬ 
chines in which, as heretofore, several slivers are condensed into one. In 
the last of these machines there are no fallers, the entire process con¬ 
sisting of two sets of rollers revolving at different speed. Each operation 
results in a slightly finer sliver, and the number of machines through 
which the material is drawn is determined by the fineness of the yarn 
desired. 

The last of the drawing processes is the so-called roving box, which, 
in most cases is a cone-drawing process. There is a difference here be¬ 
tween French spinning and English spinning. According to the French 
system, which is employed in this country only for very soft fine yarns, 
no twist is given to the sliver until the actual spinning begins; and the 
spinning is then usually done on mules, which in this country are rarely 
used in the manufacture of worsted yarn. We shall discuss these ma¬ 
chines when we come to woolens. According to the most common pro¬ 
cedure in this country, the roving box not only draws, but imparts a 
certain amount of twist to the yarn. This is done by winding the yarn 
from horizonal spools on to vertical spindles. These spindles are set on 
long frames, similar to spinning frames, one frame containing about 
200 spindles. The yarn is guided on the bobbin by an arm, known as the 
flyer, which draws the bobbin around after it. 

There is very little difference between this last drawing operation and 
the actual spinning which immediately succeeds it. In both cases the 


74 



Drawing 


yarn is unwound from horizontal spools placed at the top of the frame 
through the inevitable two rollers going at different speeds, and guided 
on to the revolving spindle. Since the spindle revolves vertically the 
yarn is twisted. The amount of twist is regulated, as is also the amount 
of tension, and these two factors, together with the quality of the ma¬ 
terial, determine the quality of the yarn. Worsted yarn is graded accord¬ 
ing to the number of counts, which, as we have seen, is the number of 
hanks of 560 yards that make a pound avoirdupois. 

Roughly speaking, there are three modern methods of spinning, 
namely, the flyer, cap, and ring frames. All of them are derived from 
Arkwright’s original water throstle, and, if we want to go further back, 
from the old-fashioned spinning wheel. The chief difference between the 


75 






Reducing 


Flyer 


Cap 


Ring 


T wisting 


three types lies in the method of driving the spindle and guiding the 
yarn on to the bobbin. The flyer arm we have described briefly above. 
In the cap system, the bobbin is moved up and down in a fixed metal 
cap, something like the front end of a two-inch shell-casing, and this 
method of guiding the yarn has the advantage that, because of its lower 
vibration, the spindles may be driven faster. It also causes considerably 
more friction on the yarn. For worsted spinning it is probably the most 
commonly employed. Ring spinning, the most frequently used for cot¬ 
ton, and described briefly on page 28, is very similar (to the layman) 
except that the spindle revolves in a metal sleeve, and that the yarn is 
guided by a metal ring with a traveller, instead of by the end of the cap. 

What follows now is merely an auxiliary process of spinning. The 
yarn has been completed, but it is rarely used for weaving, as it comes 
off the spindle. Several strands are usually twisted together, both to 
make it stronger and to give various effects of body and color. The num¬ 
ber of strands in a yarn are designated as plys. Yarn consisting of two 
strands is called two-ply, three strands are three-ply, and so on. Yarns 


76 








Cap spinning 


of two or more colors, or yarns of varying counts, are frequently twisted 
together. It is possible also to twist worsted and cotton yarns. 

Twisting is done in a manner similar to spinning. A worsted spinning 
mill usually has about a third as many twisting spindles as spinning 
spindles, but it is important to remember that when speaking of a mill’s 
capacity in terms of spindles, it is only the spinning spindles that are 
counted. 

After the twisting is completed the finished yarn is wound on small 
spools, known as cheesers, to be weighed. Next it is wound on large 
spools in such a way that the large spool holds the contents of from ten 
to twenty cheesers, each wound in an adjacent space at the same time. 
Some of the yarn is shipped to weaving mills on these large spools; and 
some of it is taken off them and skeined. 

We are now ready to weave the cloth, but there are a considerable 
number of very interesting details which we have been forced to omit. 
All the processes we have discussed produce a certain amount of waste 
material. The combing waste, known as noils, is the largest by-product 


Spindlage 


Winding or 
Skeining 


Waste 


77 



Wool and 
Piece and 
Double 
Dyeing 


Warping 


Sizing 


Beaming 


of the worsted industry, but there is also a considerable amount of yarn 
waste produced in the various drawing and spinning operations. Prac¬ 
tically all of this material finds its way back, in one form or another, 
into the woolen industry. The subject of reclaiming waste is in itself so 
comprehensive that we can do no more than touch upon it here. 

6. Dyeing 

Some yarns are dyed after they have been spun. In most cases, how¬ 
ever, woolen yarns receive their color after the wool is scoured and be¬ 
fore it goes into the carding machine. In worsted manufacture the com¬ 
mon procedure is to dye the top after it has been combed. In this way a 
uniform color is obtained, whereas it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 
the same color from two vats in piece-dyeing. Some materials are both 
wool and piece-dyed, the second dye being given to the cloth. This is 
done in cases where a peculiarly fast color is desired, or where the cloth 
contains separate materials such as wool and cotton. 

The operation of the loom has already been described in connection 
with the manufacture of cotton, but the preparatory processes, al¬ 
though somewhat similar, vary considerably because of the difference 
in the nature of the materials. In worsted manufacture the work which 
has to be done before the loom can begin to operate is usually referred 
to as loom-mounting, and consists of five stages. 

1. Warping is the arranging of the warp threads in the order neces¬ 
sary to produce the desired cloth. This was formerly, and still is to a 
great extent, done entirely by hand on a sort of rack known as the woof. 
In the larger mills, however, warping is now done either on a sectional 
warping machine or on the warping mill. Both these devices are only 
partly automatic, and require highly-skilled labor. 

2. The mechanical structure of woolen or worsted yarns necessitates 
the application of some glutinous substance to their surfaces before 
subjecting them to the weaving process. No matter how even the worsted 
yarn, a microscopic examination would show certain fibres protruding 
from the surface. Sizing has the effect of smoothing the surface of the 
yarn, and at the same time distributing more evenly the strain of weav¬ 
ing. The sizing machine is rather like the back-washer used in the manu¬ 
facturing of worsted yarn. The warp is run through the sizing bath and' 
then compressed betweeen rollers, after which it is dried by steam or 
fan. 

3. Beaming is the term applied to winding the warp upon the beam 
of the loom. (The beam is the roller from which the warp threads are 
unwound as the weaving progresses.) In order to keep the threads in 
their proper position an instrument known as a raddle is employed, and 
the raddling process is one which requires considerable care. 


78 



Drawing in the warp threads 


4. The next step, healding, is the same as that described on page 34 
and enables the warp threads to be lifted in sections in order that the 
shuttle may pass under some and over others. From the original weave 
of lifting alternate threads, a great many complicated designs have 
been evolved, which necessitate the lifting of the warp threads in many 
small series. In the elementary weave where there are only two groups, 
this work is done by heald-wires which raise the odd and depress the 
even threads, thus forming a V, known as the shed, through which the 
shuttle may pass. As the design becomes more intricate the healding 
process becomes more complicated, and the number of heald shafts in¬ 
creases. 

5. Sleying, or reeding, is the final preparatory process, and has the 
object of keeping the warp threads the proper distance apart during 
weaving. The sley is really nothing more than a fine comb with a strip 
across the ends of the teeth. The warp threads are passed between the 
wires (reeds) of the sley and are so compelled to keep their proper 
position. 


Healding 


Sleying 


79 










The Power 
Loom 



Weaving 


The sley is attached to the batten, or fly, and as in the cotton loom 
performs the additional function of driving home each weft thread 
after the shuttle has passed. 

Once these processes have been completed the remainder is almost 
entirely automatic. The shuttle flies back and forth without aid. The 
proper warp threads are raised and lowered to let it pass, and after 
each traverse, or pick, the batten automatically drives home the weft 
thread, into the growing stretch of cloth that is winding itself up on to 
the beam at one end, while the beam at the other end delivers the paral¬ 
lel warp threads. The average worsted loom makes about 100 picks per 
minute, which is only about half as fast as the calico loom, the reason 
being the lower tensile strength of the yarn. 


80 










8. Worsted Finishing 

While, as we shall see, finishing in the woolen industry is a very im¬ 
portant stage of manufacture, worsted materials are practically un¬ 
changed after they come out of the loom. There is sometimes a certain 
amount of fulling and raising and cropping, but the net result does not 
in any way alter the cloth, except perhaps to impart a little smoother 
finish. We shall discuss finishing in a little more detail when we come to 
the last stage of woolen manufacture. 

Our worsted cloth is now finished, and we have traced its origin, 
somewhat sketchily, from the back of the sheep up to the point where it 
takes only a tailor to put it on the back of a man. 

CHAPTER III 

WOOLEN MANUFACTURE 
1. The Manufacture of Woolen Yarn 

We have taken the worsted industry first, not because it is necessarily 
any more important than woolen manufacture, but because its processes 
are more complicated, and therefor, if we have gained a certain amount 
of familiarity with them, we are able to take up the sister industry in a 
more abbreviated manner. Although, at the present time, the demand for 
worsted materials is a great deal heavier than the demand for woolens, 
the woolen industry is by far the older of the two, and may rightfully 
claim that the worsted branch is really an off-shoot of its tree. Moreover, 
while broadcloth and similar material no longer enjoy their erstwhile 
popularity, there is still a tremendous demand for other products of the 
woolen industry such as blankets, flannels, overcoatings, etc. And we 
must bear in mind that most of the cheaper clothing materials are 
woolens. 

In the sorting of wool we saw that the shorter staples were classed as 
clothing wools. To these must be added the noils from worsted combing, 
yarn waste, and wool reclaimed from off-sorts, as well as wool extract 
made from rags, before we have the raw material for the woolen in¬ 
dustry. 

Whereas we found that combing wool had to be left in the grease until 
it could be carded immediately after scouring, the maker of woolen yarn 
will buy wool that has been scoured months before. Most of the wool 
that is scoured by or near the growers finds its way into the woolen in¬ 
dustry for this reason. The scouring given to clothing wool varies only 
in that it is more violent than that given to combing wool, and in that it 
is frequently augmented by carbonization to remove vegetable matter. 


Raw Material 


Scouring 


81 



Mule Spinning 


Blending 


Fibres not 
parallel as 
in Worsted 


Carding 


The first process after scouring is blending. When the desired mixture 
of various grades, kinds, and colors of wool, wool extract, or cotton has 
been effected, the resulting heterogeneous mass is put through the first 
of several carding processes. 

From now on the desire of the woolen yarn manufacturer is diametri¬ 
cally opposed to that of the worsted comber. He wants to open out the 
fibres, but he wants them to lie in all directions. He does not want uni¬ 
formity. He wants just the opposite. His yarn must have a certain 
amount of strength, but it must have, first of all, felting properties, so 
that when the cloth is finished the various threads will merge and inter¬ 
lock. As might be expected, therefore, the carding process is very much 
more violent. 

The blend is first put through a fearnought which might be described 
briefly as the most pitiless member of the card family. It is also known 
as a tenter-hook-willy, from the reversed position of its teeth. From this 
machine the wool goes through the card proper, which is similar to the 
worsted card except that the rollers go in opposite directions, instead of 
in the same directions. Here, again, the doffer lifts the wool off in a 


82 

















Burling and mending 


continuous filmy sheet and delivers it to the condenser. The sheet is not 
simply drawn through a funnel into a single thick sliver, but is forced 
between rollers into two leather rubbing aprons which by pressure and 
friction reduce it to a series of small soft flabby slivers, having just 
enough adhesiveness to permit of mule spinning. 

The fibres in these slivers may be of all lengths and degrees of fine¬ 
ness, and they lie in all directions. 

There are now no elaborate drawing or combing processes. All that 
remains to be done before we have a weavable woolen yarn is a certain 
amount of twisting and attenuation. Both these results are obtained at 
once in the mule. 

In a woolen mule the spools of sliver are placed in a fixed frame, and 
the sliver passes between a pair of rollers to the spindles. These stand, 
slightly inclined backwards, in a long row upon the movable carriage. 
At first the spindle tips are close to the rollers. The sliver is paid out, 
and at the same time the carriage bearing the revolving spindles retreats. 


Condenser 


Mule 

Spinning 


83 






During this time no yarn is wound on the bobbins, but the slivers are 
being twisted. Then the rollers cease to pay out sliver, the carriage 
moves out a little further, and the spindles rotate faster, so that the yarn 
is being twisted and stretched. When sufficient twist has been imparted 
the carriage moves back again and the spindles wind up the twisted yarn 
on to the bobbins. This, briefly, is the operation of the mule. There are 
a great many intricate devices in this machine which deserve attention, 
but which hardly fall within our scope. All that remains now is to wind 
the yarn on spools, or skein it, before it is ready for the weaver. 


2. The Manufacture of Woolen Cloth 


Weaving 


Carpets 


Finishing 
Important 
in Woolens 


Burling 


There are many differences between weaving worsteds and woolens, 
but for our purposes we may consider the process the same, as in a 
general way it is. Some cloths are woven with a cotton warp and a 
woolen yarn filling, the warp being carefully concealed. Woolen cloths 
are more frequently woven with a backing than worsteds. This means 
that either there is a double warp, a double weft, or both. The object of 
backing is usually to add strength and warmth to the material, and the 
lower side is therefore often woven of coarser yarn. In some cases, how¬ 
ever, notably in travelling rugs, the backing may be just as elaborate as 
the face, and this necessitates a rather intricate mounting process. 

Carpet weaving is one of the large branches of the woolen industry, 
and for this purpose the coarsest and longest fibred wools (common, 
braid, and carpet wools) are usually employed. These wools readily 
lend themselves to the manufacture of a coarse thick yarn, which in turn 
produces a thick, durable material. The thickness of a carpet is known 
as the pile. 

Whereas we saw that the worsted cloth was practically finished when 
it left the loom, this is not the case with woolens. Oftentimes it would 
tax an expert to identify the finished goods with the loose and altogether 
different material produced by the weaver. Some fine woolens, it is true, 
are scarcely altered more than worsteds, but in most cases the finishing 
operations are in this industry a major rather than a subsidiary stage of 
manufacture. The reader may have been puzzled at the divergent lines 
along which woolen and worsted yarns are manufactured, and at a loss 
to account for the reasons. The cause is precisely this, that the worsted 
manufacturer aims to produce a cloth that is completed when woven, 
while the woolen maker wants his loom to turn out a material that will 
readily adopt a great variety of finishes. 

The first finishing operation, which applies also to worsteds, is the 
examination of the piece for imperfections and the removing of them by 


84 



Fulling 


hand. The piece is then scoured to get rid of dirt, and, where the finish 
is complicated, this may be repeated several times. 

Fulling, the next and very important process, consists in passing the 
material through closed or partially enclosed boxes, in which the cloth 
is run through soap solutions and then forced through rollers. The re¬ 
sult of fulling is to shrink the material and give more body to it. It is 
chiefly in order to be able to do this that the maker of woolens wants the 
fibres in his yarn to lie criss-cross, so that in the fulling mill their ser¬ 
rated edges will felt and interlock with each other. The amount of full¬ 
ing done depends upon the shrinkage desired. It is possible to reduce the 
size of the cloth by half in this process. Some worsteds are slightly 
fulled, but in their case it simply serves to add a little body to the cloth, 


Fulling 


85 









Raising 



Steaming 


without in any way sacrificing the design of the weaving. Long before 
the invention of even the earliest automatic textile machinery there were 
great numbers of water-driven fulling mills, in which the woolen cloth 
was pounded in fuller’s earth by wooden hammers. In those days the 
cloth was felted into a stiff thick mass which would resist wear almost 
indefinitely, but which would hardly adapt itself to the requirements of 
modern tailoring. 

The fulled piece is next made to revolve on a large drum set with 
teazle-heads. The object of this procedure is to open out the fibres, and 
the process is known as raising. In worsteds and fancy woolens, such as 
trouserings, raising is really nothing more than the brushing up of the 
loose fibres so that they may be cropped off, much as grass is cut on a 
lawn. This will of course have the effect of showing up the weave very 
plainly. In most woolens, however, the cloth is raised wet, and the teazle 
motion is more violent, so that the entire surface is covered with a thick 
nap of brushed up fibres which entirely conceal the weave. This is often 
very desirable where coarse backing threads are to be hidden, or where, 


86 





Cropping 


for other reasons, a thick nap is desired, as for instance in rough over¬ 
coatings. There may be several raisings and croppings, between which 
the material is boiled and pressed, all depending on the character of the 
face that is desired. In some cloths the finishing processes are exceed¬ 
ingly complicated, particularly where a smooth finish such as doeskin is 
sought. The variety of finishes is infinite and new ones are constantly 
being invented, many of which are closely guarded trade secrets. In 
most cases pressing completes the process. 

We have now followed both the combing and the clothing wools 
through the process of manufacture into worsted and woolen yarns and 
cloths. Again, let us emphasize that the relative amount of space devoted 
here to the two industries is governed, not by their comparative import- 


Cropping 


Pressing 


87 


















ance, but by what appeared to be the most concise method of approach. 
Many details, which loom up as tremendous problems to the manufac¬ 
turer, have necessarily been treated here with scant respect, and others 
have not even been mentioned. 

3.. Mohair and Alpaca 

There are two materials upon which we have not touched at all, al¬ 
though they are generally included in wool manufacture. Mohair is the 
hair of the Angora goat, and has many characteristics of both hair and 
Mohair wool. These animals are native to Asia Minor, but are now extensively 
raised in other parts of the world, notably in Africa and in this country. 
The hair averages about four inches in length, although it frequently 
grows much longer, is very smooth and fine, has considerable tensile 
strength, low elasticity, and practically no felting property. It is used 
primarily in the manufacture of plush, such as is used in railroad car¬ 
riages, and makes very durable material. It is also woven into Palm 
Beach cloth, or mixed with worsted or cotton yarns in such fabrics as 
automobile tops. 

Alpaca is a similar fibre, obtained from an animal native to Bolivia 
and Peru. The fibre is finer than mohair, and a little more like wool. It 
Alpaca comes in three natural colors; white, brown, and black, all of which are 
found on the same fleece. Alpaca is both light and soft, and therefore 
lends itself admirably to the manufacture of thin linings. 

4. Knitting and Felt Manufacture 

Whereas most wool yarn is woven into cloth, there is also the knitting 
process, in which the individual threads are interlaced into a regular 
fabric without warp and weft structure. The work is performed on a 
sort of loom, called the stockinette frame, upon which the yarns are 
arranged in parallel order and uniform distances apart. The actual knit¬ 
ting closely resembles hand knitting, and is done entirely by automatic 
mechanism. A machine of this sort is capable of turning out a great 
length of material in a short time, and the fabric has the fine ribbed 
character seen in ordinary knitted goods. The article is soft, full, and 
Frame 6tte e l ast i c ’ hut lacks the strength and firmness of woven fabrics. Stockinette 
cloths, sweaters, some underwear, and hosiery are products of the knit¬ 
ting machine, and the knitting mills are important consumers of noils 
and low-grade wools. 

Besides being made into yarn, and woven or knit into goods, wool is 
also compressed into felts of various kinds. Space unfortunately is 
Felt lacking for the consideration of this subject here, although a consider¬ 

able quantity of wool goes into felt manufacture. 


88 


CHAPTER IV 
THE ECONOMIC ASPECT 


1. Financial Risks 


Bearing in mind the industrial structure we have just outlined, it 
might be well for us to glance briefly at its financial scaffolding. From 
the banker’s point of view there are many features which are distinctive 
of the wool trade, and which exercise an important bearing upon the 
judgment of a credit risk. 

To begin with the grower, we find here that in many instances the 
large raisers of sheep have built up their own banks. In Texas, for in¬ 
stance, there are a considerable number of banks whose chief business 
consists in financing the wool clips of their sections. On the other ex¬ 
treme we have the small grower of the East, who is frequently at the 
mercy of the local storekeeper. Where wool growing is practised on a 
large scale in this country the tendency is more and more to reduce the 
business to a scientifically standardized scale, in such a manner as is 
prevalent in Australia. The more this is done the more independent the 
grower becomes, and the easier it is for a bank to determine the strength 
of the individual risk. The sheep raiser has of course one primary asset, 
his flocks; and if he is compelled to borrow, the security behind his note 
rests upon his sheep. In making a loan to a sheep man a bank has to con¬ 
sider not only the market value of the animals, but the conditions under 
which they are being raised. Sheep are affected by droughts, for in¬ 
stance, and many flocks have been ravaged by predatory animals, or 
decimated by disease. Any one of these contingencies may at any mo¬ 
ment destroy or depreciate the bank’s collateral, and for this reason 
borrowing of this sort is confined very largely to banks situated in 
sheep-growing sections which specialize in this form of loan. 

It would be of great interest to figure the average cost of production 
per pound of wool to the grower, but, with the varying conditions en¬ 
countered in different parts of the country and with sundry breeds, an 
accurate estimate can hardly be arrived at. Even the cost of shearing is 
variously figured from ten to nearly thirty cents. Generally speaking, 
however, the grower needs very little financial assistance, because he is 
able to sell his entire clip for cash. The buyers representing merchants 
—or in a few cases, mills—are prepared to pay cash for their wool, and 
in some cases where they feel sure of a rising market, often go so far as 
to buy the wool on the sheep’s back before it is shorn. Provided the 
grower knows something about wool, and the existing demand, there is 
no reason why, from the proceeds of one clip, he should not be able to 
meet his costs up to the time of the next shearing. 


Sheep 

Banks 


Sheep 

Risks 


Grower’s 

Cost 


89 


The Merchant 


Credit Risks 


Merchant 

Manufac¬ 

turers 


Brokers 


The merchant is up against a very different proposition. As we have 
seen, he buys for cash, and not only sells on credit, but carries a large 
proportion of what he buys for several months, before he can dispose of 
it. There are so many kinds of wool merchants that it is almost impos¬ 
sible to make any general observations. One merchant, for example, may 
specialize entirely in domestic wools; in that case he would do all his 
buying in the spring months and would gradually dispose of his mate¬ 
rial, having first graded it, during the remainder of the year. Another 
house might do the bulk of its business in South American wools, which 
would mean a fall purchasing season. Still another would handle both 
domestic and South American, and a fourth might import from all parts 
of the world, so that buying and selling would be going on continuously 
and at the same time throughout the year. The credit requirements of the 
first two houses would be an easier demand upon the bank than those of 
the latter, but in all cases the judging of the risk involves certain prim¬ 
ary considerations, each of which really necessitates the close study of 
the individual case. 

A wool merchant’s business is largely based on his estimate of the 
future. There are no “future” markets for wool as there are for cotton 
and silk, and the wool dealer cannot therefore protect himself by 
hedging. Were it not for the fact that he assumes a risk which neither the 
grower nor, in most cases, the manufacturer is able to take, he could not 
maintain his position as the middleman. The merchant’s buyer must, as 
we have seen, be able to judge the amount of shrinkage within a very 
small fraction, he must know the demand for each quality of wool so 
that he may be sure not to pay more than he can sell for, and, what is 
more, he must be able to forecast the future with a certain amount of ac¬ 
curacy in order to make his profit. Furthermore, the merchant must be 
constantly on his guard against doing more business than his capital 
warrants, while at the same time, unless he makes every dollar work, his 
business will in normal times fail to show him a profit. 

Some wool dealers have become considerably more than middlemen, 
and have gone quite extensively into the first stages of manufacture. 
This is particularly true of some of the large houses which of recent 
years have established top manufacturing departments, and which there¬ 
fore sell a large proportion of their goods not as raw wool but as tops 
and noil. 

Although the dealers do the bulk of the commission work in consign¬ 
ment sales, there are a great number of brokers whose function is pri¬ 
marily the buying and selling for account of others. These houses usu¬ 
ally operate with a limited capital, and are not extensive seekers of 
credit. 


90 


So far as the manufacturers, or mills of various sorts, are concerned, 
there is one striking difference about the paper of woolen and worsted 
mills as against cotton mill notes which appear in the open market; 
cotton mill paper, except in the case of the strongest mills, usually bears 
the endorsement of the commission house which sells the mill’s product, 
but this is not as a rule the case with woolen and worsted mill paper. 
The reason is that a large number of the wool manufacturing establish¬ 
ments sell direct to wholesalers and jobbers, and have no close affilia¬ 
tion with a selling-house. 

Trade terms vary a good deal. Raw wool is almost invariably sold for 
cash by the grower. Dealers make various terms to mills, the most usual 
being 1 % ten days, sixty days net. The terms on which mills sell to job¬ 
bers also have a wide range; some sell thirty days net, some 10% thirty 
days, others 7 % four months. 


2. Demand and Supply 

Sheep raising is, as we have seen, chiefly carried on on the border¬ 
lines of civilization. As civilized life encroaches upon the pasture lands 
the flocks are driven gradually further and further into hitherto unin- 
habitated regions. The population of the world is steadily increasing, 
and the available grazing acres are constantly being reduced as the 
world becomes more thickly populated. Also, as the population in¬ 
creases, the demand for clothing and food increases, so that, on the face 
of it, it would seem that the production of wool would decrease while 
the demand grew constantly larger. In a measure this is true; but there 
are several factors which tend to arrest this Malthusian spectre. In the 
first place, there are still vast areas of desert land which can be re¬ 
claimed for grazing purposes. In the second place the growing of wool 
in most countries is as yet practiced on a very crude and consequently 
uneconomical scale. And, finally, the use of shoddy and wool regained 
from rags, has only begun to be developed. Nor is it true that sheep 
must necessarily be raised in uncultivated regions; England, with her 
closely settled soil, supports about three-fifths as many sheep as the 
United States, on an area of only 121,377 square miles, as against the 
3,026,789 square miles in this country. 

The world’s total output of wool in 1921 is estimated at three billion, 
three million pounds, as against two billion, eight hundred and ninety- 
four million pounds in 1918. The production of the 1921 crop was di¬ 
vided as follows: Europe 899 million pounds, Australia 718 million 
pounds, South America 592 million pounds, Asia 327 million pounds. 
North America 298 million pounds, Africa 169 million pounds. 


Mills 


Trade 

Terms 


91 


The following table will show the amount of wool produced and 
imported in the United States between the years of 1897 and 1922: 


WOOL PRODUCT OF THE UNITED STATES 



Year 

Pounds 

Year 

Pounds. 


1897 

259,153,251 

1910 

321,362,750 


1898 

266,720,684 

1911 

318,547,900 


1899 

272,191330 

1912 

304,043,400 


1900 

288,636,621 

1913 

296,175,300 

u. s. 

1901 

302,502,382 

1914 

290,192,000 

Product 

1902 

316,341,032 

1915 

288,777,000 


1903 

287,450,000 

1916 

288,498,600 


1904 

291,783,032 

1917 

285,573,000 


1905 

295,488,438 

1918 

299,921,000 


1906 

298,715,130 

1919 

298,258,000 


1907 

298,294,750 

1920 

277,905,000 


1908 

311,138,321 

1921 

273,546,000 


1909 

^328,110,749 

1922 

261,095,000 




IMPORTS OF WOOL INTO THE UNITED STATES 


Year 

Pounds 

Year 

Pounds. 


1897 

350,852,026 

1910 

263,928,232 


1898 

132,795,302 

1911 

137,647,641 


1899 

76,736,209 

1912 

193,400,713 


1900 

155,918,455 

1913 

195,293,255 

u. s. 

1901 

103,583,505 

1914 

247,648,869 

Imports 

1902 

166,576,966 

1915 

308,083,429 


1903 

177,137,796 

1916 

'*"534,828,022 


1904 

173,742,834 

1917 

372,372,218 


1905 

249,135,746 

1918 

422,414,985 


1906 

201,688,668 

1919 

414,506,891 


1907 

203,847,545 

1920 

419,394,201 


1908 

125,980,524 

1921 

314,624,288 


1909 

266,409,304 

1922 

250,840,752 


92 


THE INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE BANK, INC. 
AND THE WOOL TRADE 


The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., opens com¬ 
mercial letters of credit in South America, Australia, and 
South Africa for the importation of raw Wool. It is particu¬ 
larly well equipped to handle this business because of its in¬ 
timate connection with The First National Bank of Boston, 
which is not only the leading wool bank of the country, but 
also maintains a branch in Buenos Aires. The First National 
Bank of Boston is one of the most important stockholders 
of The International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 

By reason of its having as shareholders Messrs. N. M. 
Rothschild & Sons and The National Provincial Bank 
Ltd., London, as well as many other correspondents in that 
city, The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., is able to 
finance imports of wool by means of Sterling credits as well 
as through its own Dollar facilities. 


93 





PART THREE 


SILK 


By 

Benjamin Strong, Jr. 

of the 

International Acceptance Bank, Inc. 


Photographs by courtesy of 
William Skinner & Sons and 
the Keystone View Co. 



Picking Mulberry Leaves 







CHAPTER I 


THE RAW MATERIAL 
1. History 

Silk owes its position as one of the three leading textiles to its qual¬ 
ities of strength, elasticity and beauty—in which respects it surpasses 
all other fabrics. Its production dates far into antiquity; for centuries 
China was the seat of the industry, guarding the secret methods and 
processes with the utmost care. During the sixth and seventh centuries 
A. D. the secret began to leak out and sericulture gradually found root 
in the Near East and the Levant, whence it spread to Greece, Italy, 
France and Spain. Japan also took it up and developed it to a very high 
point. 

Attempts to establish the industry in America have been generally 
unsuccessful, high costs precluding the possibility of competing with 
foreign conditions. In addition, the raising of raw silk has been built 
up principally in countries where there is a system of home industry—a 
social and industrial system never developed in the United States. How¬ 
ever, although America has never been a factor in the producing of the 
raw material, it has risen to a place of utmost importance in the manu¬ 
facture of the finished textile. Immense quantities of raw silk are im¬ 
ported from abroad—principally Japan, Italy, and China—and its con¬ 
version into the finished products constitutes a most important part of 
our industry. 


2. The Silk Worm 

The textile fibre known as silk is a filament secreted by one of two 
general types of moth larvae—the cultivated and the wild. The largest 
proportion is, of course, made up of the former, produced by the worm 
known as the Bombyx mori , while the most common type of wild silk 
worm i§ called the Tussah. The name Bombyx mori comes from the 
name of the family to which the silk worm belongs: the Bombycidoe 
(spinners), and mori , from the morus multicaulis or mulberry tree, on 
the leaves of which it feeds. The species Sericaria mori , or silk worm of 
the mulberry, belongs to the generic class of Lepidoptera or scaly- 
winged insects. 

The Bombyx mori , with which we are chiefly concerned, is divided 
into other groups according to the cycle of reproduction. The annuals 
reproduce once a year, and sixty per cent of the silk worms belong to 


Early 

Sericulture 


Industry 

in 

America 


Names and 
Types of 
Silk Worms 


Bombyx Mori 


97 


Stages of 
Growth 



Full Grown Worms 


this class. The bivoltines reproduce twice a year, and the polyvoltines, 
several times during the year, the first crop being the best. 

The study and development of the various phases through which the 
silk worm passes, leading up to its production of the actual filament, 
have been a subject of intense research in many parts of the world for 
a great number of centuries. The present silk worm is nothing more than 
a highly specialized product of a long train of artificial cultivation. 

The cultivated silk worm passes through four changes in its life of 
two months, i. e., egg, larva, chrysalis (or pupa), and adult—a cream- 
white moth which is about one inch in length. The moths live only a few 
days, during which mating takes place, and the female lays several hun¬ 
dred eggs; after about six months these eggs hatch into worms. The lat¬ 
ter pass through what are known as four “molts,” or shedding of the 
skin, before the worm matures, spins its cocoon, becomes a chrysalis, 
and finally emerges as a moth. This, very briefly, is the life history of 
the silk worm. 


3. Modern Sericulture 

Silk raising, or sericulture, has been a leading industry in Japan and 
China for a great many years, while the Near East and such countries 


98 



Cocoonery 


as France and Italy have also played a part in the industry—but to a 
lesser degree. A great deal of this work, particularly in Japan and 
China, has been carried on as a home industry, but with the growth of 
modern business methods more and more of the silk raising has come 
into the hands of companies operating on a highly scientific basis. 

After many years of experience and experimentation the breeding 
and care of the silk worm has been put on a very technical and closely 
regulated schedule that minimizes the chances of loss by waste or the 
spread of disease. In Japan the industry has been encouraged and 
fostered by the Government; a special division of the administration is 
devoted to its attention, and numerous organizations and associations 
conduct experimental stations for research and study. In fact since 
about the middle of the 19th century everything possible has been done 
to foster this highly profitable branch of the country’s industry. 

The merest outline of the modern methods of cultivation will show 
how highly they have been developed. To begin with, the eggs are 
placed on sheets of paper or muslin directly after they are laid. These 
sheets are hung for a few days in a damp atmosphere, and then 
placed in cold storage for about six months, the period of cold being 
advantageous for later hatching, which is done by heat. 


Countries 
Producing 
Raw Silk 


Japanese 

Supervision 


Modern 
Methods of 
Cultivation 


Hatching 
the Eggs 


99 







Growth of 
the Worms 


Feeding 
the Worms 


The 

Mulberry 

Tree 


Early 

Development 


Spinning 
the Cocoon 


After hatching, the worm sheds its skin four times. The periods be¬ 
tween the “molts,” or ages, vary with different silk worms, but the total 
process takes about a month. Worms of different ages are always kept 
separate, being held on large cloth trays which are carried in tiers along 
the walls of the rearing rooms. The cocooneries where best results are 
obtained are quiet, spacious, well-ventilated rooms where an even tem¬ 
perature can be maintained. Each worm is kept absolutely clean and has 
plenty of room, as overcrowding brings disease. As a precaution mild 
fumigation is resorted to from time to time. Heavy odors or smoke of 
any sort are not allowed, as these are disturbing to the worms. 

Nourishment is, of course, a very important item for the growing 
worms, and the best form of food for the Bombyx mori is the leaf of 
the white mulberry, which must be young, fresh and dry, but never 
withered. For this purpose mulberry tree raising has become an impor¬ 
tant by-industry in itself. Three varieties are found, classified according 
to the time of budding—early, medium and late. The leaves, therefore, 
can be found in the correct condition for the various stages in the 
growth of the worm. The late budding trees are cultivated in more 
abundance, as the worms are larger at that time and consume more 
leaves. The soil in which the trees grow is important, as it has been 
found that one which is rich in certain minerals provides leaves that 
keep the worms in better physical condition. A cold winter followed by 
a warm spring develops the leaves well, and the condition of the leaves 
is one of the most important factors in the whole process. 

Careful selection of the eggs is another matter of prime importance. 
When the leaves are almost ready, the eggs are brought out of cold stor¬ 
age and subjected to heat for about a month before they hatch out. 
When the worm hatches it is about the diameter of a hair and less than 
three-fourths of an inch long. It gnaws a hole through the end of the 
egg from which it issues. Nourishment at first is taken by sucking the 
sap of the leaves, which are at this stage chopped into fine pieces; later 
the leaves are consumed without the necessity of their being chopped up. 

The development is very rapid, the worms consuming their own 
weight daily. During this period, as has been stated, they shed their 
skins four times, and after the fourth molt—about one month after 
hatching—they have assumed their full size. From then on hunger 
lessens, restlessness grows, and the lifting of the fore part of the body 
indicates the desire to climb and spin cocoons. For this purpose brush 
and twigs are provided in the trays, to which the worms attach them¬ 
selves and begin the spinning process. The silk thread is expelled in a 
semi-liquid form from two openings underneath the mouth, hardening 
as it comes in contact with the air. The first threads issued are coarse 
and rough, having the necessary strength to serve as supports and guys 


100 



Worms Feeding 


for the cocoon. Gradually the worm is enclosed in the cocoon after three 
days of continuous spinning, during one of which it is visible and then 
slowly disappears, though it can be heard working inside. 

The worm wastes away as its silk glands are exhausted, and becomes 
a chrysalis, from which the moth escapes after fifteen to twenty days. 


101 






Cocoons for 
Breeding 


Construction 
of the 

Silk Thread 



A Nest of Cocoons 


Cocoons to be used for silk manufacture must be submitted to heat 
soon after they are completed, in order to kill the chrysalis and prevent 
it from forcing its way out, thus breaking the fibres. A certain propor¬ 
tion of the cocoons of each crop, however, is allowed to go through the 
natural process, for reproductive purposes. There is an active market in 
these breeding cocoons, particularly in Japan and China, and a large 
quantity are exported annually to Europe and the Near East. 

The female cocoon is oval and the male cocoon is peanut shaped. The 
silk itself consists of two parts: fibroin (the silk fibre) and sericin (the 
gum). The thread is made up of two strands of fibre held together by 
the gum, and the length of thread in a single cocoon varies from three 
hundred to fourteen hundred yards. The cocoons are white, yellowish, 
or greenish, but after the boiling process the color of the Bombyx mori 
silk is pure white. 


102 




Japanese Cocoon Market 


The preceding description is concerned more particularly with the 
latter type, from which the largest proportion of the world’s silk supply 
is derived, but in a general way it applies to the other types also. The 
most important of these are the Tussah silk of India and China and the 
Japanese wild silk. The products are coarser and harsher than those of 
the Bombyx mori , and the natural color is brown. 


Tussah and 
Wild Silk 


103 






A Japanese Filature 


CHAPTER II 
REELING 


1. History of the Filature 


Early 

Reeling 

and 

T wisting 


Vaucansons 
Filature 


The next step in the production of silk is called reeling, and for this 
purpose the modern filature has been developed. The actual existence of 
reeling machines is by no means modern, however, for it is a well- 
known fact that the Chinese knew how to use raw silk as far back as 
5000 years ago. Old prints dating back 3000 years show that the hand 
“reelers” then in use differed little in principle from the highly devel¬ 
oped filatures of today. Although China knew how to reel and twist silk 
for several thousand years, it was only in the third, fourth, and fifth 
centuries A. D. that other countries, such as Japan and Eastern Europe, 
took it up. The first filatures were, of course, extremely simple, operated 
entirely by hand, and produced a very coarse thread. Although a little 
progress was made during the Middle Ages, the turning point came in 
1750 when Vaucanson, a French engineer, invented the first real filature 
—which combined several reelers, giving the whole process more speed 
and turning out a product of considerably better quality. This marked 
the beginning of Europe’s interest in what had so long been an exclu- 


104 




The Reeling Basins 


sively Oriental industry, and from then on the French, Italians and 
Spanish in particular took up the study of sericulture and the reeling 
and manufacturing process. The result was to put the industry on a 
scientific basis which it had never reached in the East. 

2. Preparing to Reel 

The reeling process is the first step in which machinery plays an 
important part. When the cocoons are ready they must first be submitted 
to the “stoving” process, or stifling, in which they are exposed to heat 
sufficient to kill the chrysalis inside. This is followed by further drying, 
after which the cocoons are shipped in bags to the filatures and may be 
kept indefinitely without injuring the filament. 


Silk Manu¬ 
facture in 
Europe 


“Stoving” 


105 












“ Beating ” 


Waste 

Material 


Reeling 

Basins 


T wisting 


Human 

Element 


As a preliminary to reeling, the cocoons are immersed in boiling 
water to soften the gum that holds the fibre together. While in the water 
they are brushed with a coarse brush to remove the heavy outer strands 
of the cocoon—a process called “beating.” These outer strands are 
usually too harsh and broken to be reeled, but are afterwards utilized as 
so-called waste which is used for spun-silk manufacture.* This applies 
also to the innermost layers of the cocoon. About one-half of the thread 
on a cocoon actually finds its way into thrown silk. The remainder is 
“waste.” When, by brushing, the true threads are reached it is possible 
to start reeling, and barring occasional breaks these threads are con¬ 
tinuous all the way down to the chrysalis. 

*See Chapter IV. 2. 

3. Modern Reeling Methods 

While being reeled the cocoons are floated in basins of very hot 
water, each basin feeding a reeling machine. A single cocoon strand is 
too fine to use commercially, so several are taken at a time, varying 
from three to seven or eight according to the size of thread desired. The 
size used in this country most extensively is known as 13/15 deniers and 
is reeled from six or seven cocoons. During the reeling the water is kept 
at about 60° C., but if the cocoons are very dry a higher temperature is 
required. A heavy smoke issues from the basins and not only humidifies 
the room but also penetrates the silk, rendering it very gummy and hard. 
This is overcome by the use of steam-heated tubes running over and 
around the machines. 

Each reeling machine and basin is in charge of a girl who is respon¬ 
sible for its operation and for the reeling of thread of correct size. She 
must keep careful watch that the filament comes off the cocoons steadily 
and that all breaks are immediately taken care of, exhausted cocoons 
being replaced by new ones at the proper time. In many filatures each 
girl is charged with so many cocoons and must turn in a proportionate 
amount of reeled silk at the end of the day. 

The twisting operation is an important part of the reeling process, 
for the raw silk threads, being composed of parallel cocoon filaments, 
cohering only by their natural gum, would, unless twisted, mat up and 
become unworkable. Various methods are used to obtain this torque, the 
general idea in each case being to run the separate cocoon threads 
through small rings or eyes and then unite them in one thread large 
enough to reel. In spite of the many mechanical devices and improve¬ 
ments brought out in the last few years, the success of the reeling opera¬ 
tion still is dependent on the reeling girl’s ability and care. It is 
particularly important that she be able to judge the number of cocoons 


106 



Rereeling Room 


of a certain size and texture needed to make a thread of the required 
denier. 

The raw silk is reeled on travellers in hanks known as skeins and 
varying from 50 to 100 grams in weight, which are taken off by the reel¬ 
ing girl and the ends of the thread tied up to facilitate the work at the 
mill. Before leaving the filature it is also subjected to critical tests and 
examinations for size, winding, cleanliness, irregularities, etc. The color 
of raw silk as it comes off the cocoon and is reeled into skeins is either 
white or yellow, though some sorts have a brownish or greenish tinge. 
Tussah silks have a brownish-yellow color. The coloring matter in the 
cultivated silks is only in the gum and boils out with it, but the color in 
the tussah is in the fibre, rendering it very difficult to bleach. 


T esting 
the Skeins 


Color of 
Raw Silk 


107 






" Books” of Raw Silk Skeins 

Tussah, or wild silk, is not generally reeled by the wet reel process, 
as the cocoons are apt to be closed up at each end by gum. In China this 
gum is softened by burying the cocoons in manure instead of immersing 


108 







them in hot water. This is known as dry reeling. It very often happens 
that the tussah cocoons are unfit for reeling, due to being pierced or 
tangled. Silk from these imperfect cocoons is again classed as “waste,” 
along with the frisons, or outside and inmost layers of the cultivated 
cocoons, which, as has been stated, are used to make spun silk. In this 
country waste silk is often called schappe, although strictly speaking 
this name should only be applied to waste silk degummed by the 
French process of fermentation. 

The raw silk, having been reeled and twisted into skeins, is next 
marked and tied together in bundles of skeins known as “books” each 
bearing the mark or “chop” of its grade. These are packed in bales for 
shipment, the weight of the bales varying in different countries. In 
Japan and China they are called picul bales and weigh 133 1/3 pounds. 
Italian silks, on the other hand, are packed in shipping bales of about 
200 pounds. 


4. Sources of Raw Silk 

Of the countries producing raw silk, Japan and China occupy the 
leading positions by a large margin, the former contributing roughly 
one half of the world’s supply, and the latter about one third. Italy 
ranks a poor third with about one tenth, and France, the Near East, 
India, Spain and the Balkans contribute the balance. 

Although the greater part of the raw silk produced in the various 
countries is exported for manufacture abroad, a certain percentage is 
retained for home spinning and weaving. It is estimated that about 65 
per cent of the Japanese output is exported, approximately 90 per cent, 
of which goes to the United States. 

In China over one half of the output is held for domestic consump¬ 
tion, the remainder being divided about equally between Europe and 
America. 

The Italian raw silk—a very high quality product—finds its largest 
market in France, principally in the city of Lyons, the silk center of 
Europe. 


CHAPTER III 
MARKETING RAW SILK 
1. Marketing Methods 

The principal raw silk markets of the world are Yokohama, Lyons, 
New York, Milan and Canton. Of these, Yokohama is probably the larg- 


Reeling 
Wild Silk 


Waste Silk 


Baling 


Picul 

Bale 


Japan 


China 


Italy 


Principal 

Markets 


109 


Raw Silk Production, Including Tussah Silk 

Seasons 1917-1918 to 1922-1923 


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Unpacking Bales of Raw Silk 


est and most important, due to the pre-eminent position of Japan in raw 
silk production. 

The Yokohama Raw Silk Exchange operates on a basis similar to 
that of the various cotton exchanges, and transactions are carried on in 
“futures” as far ahead as five months. The speculative element is very 
active and its influence is often felt extensively throughout all phases 
of the industry. On several occasions it has been necessary to close 
the exchange to avert real disaster after the quotations have been 
manipulated to an unbelievable extent. During the last few years the 
Japanese Government and various silk organizations have, by law and 
regulation, succeeded in improving this situation to a very great degree, 
and the benefit has been felt throughout the industry. 

Raw silk is sold by weight—in Yokohama, by net weight, that is, 
less wrappings, etc. Of recent years in most countries it has been the 
custom to deal by conditioned weight, and as a result the conditioning 
process has become an important side line in the industry. 


Yokohama 
Silk Ex¬ 
change 


Conditioned 

Weight 


111 


2. Conditioning 


Invoice 
W eight 


Weight 


Color 


“Boil off” 


W inding 
Strength 


Conditioning is desirable principally on account of the fact that raw 
silk absorbs considerable moisture. A careless buyer may find after 
delivery that he has purchased more water than he has silk. To avoid 
this possibility, Asiatic and European markets in particular have 
adopted the conditioned weight basis—absolute dry weight plus 11 per 
cent moisture. Quotations are often given on invoice weight, which is 
conditioned weight plus a 2% margin for variation. 

A conditioning house, besides examining for weight, also conducts 
numerous other tests necessary to conditioned silk. The main factors 
taken into consideration, besides weight, are size, color, cleanliness, 
boil-olf, winding strength, elasticity, and general uniformity. 

As regards size, the unit is the denier, an ancient French weight equal 
to .05 gram; the size is measured by the weight in deniers of 450 meters 
of the thread. As previously stated, the 13/15 denier size is the standard 
used in the United States, although the larger and smaller grades are 
dealt in to some extent for special types of products. Size is always 
given as averaging between certain deniers (such as 13 to 15) as it is 
impossible to attain absolute accuracy in reeling, and slight variations 
cannot be avoided, either within the bales or within the skeins them¬ 
selves. 

The color test is concerned merely with uniformity in shade, which 
makes accurate dyeing possible. The cultivated silks are either pure 
white or yellow, according to the variety of cocoon from which they are 
derived. 

The term “boil off’ refers to the amount or percentage of gum on the 
filament. As explained before, the individual strands of fibre adhere 
together through a gummy substance secreted by the worm. The amount 
found in the reeled silk varies with different kinds from 10 to 25 per 
cent by weight—which is brought down to a minimum by the boiling 
process. 

Winding strength is measured by the breaks that occur in winding. 
In this country the test is based on the number of breaks occurring in 30 
or more skeins wound at the rate of about 120 yards per minute. This 
test is extremely important since a weak thread can do much to hinder 
an efficient re-reeling process, inasmuch as each break stops the ma¬ 
chine and must be tied by the operator. 

3. Grading and Quotations 

The question of classification of raw silk for market and the various 
terms used for its purchase and sale is a complicated one. Standardiza- 


112 


tion has been sought after for a good many years and committees both 
here and abroad have studied the problem on various occasions—but 
without entirely satisfactory results. The chief source of trouble appears 
to lie the many types of variation that may occur, not only on account 
of the great number of qualities required in the product, but also due to 
the varying conditions under which the silk is produced. In the early 
days of the industry, when farm production was the chief source of 
supply, particularly in Japan and China, satisfactory grading was al¬ 
most an impossibility. However, now that sericulture and reeling has 
come more and more into the hands of the large companies and fila¬ 
tures, a greater degree of standardization can be reached. 

The following is an actual example of a recent quotation list in the 
New York market as it appeared in a commercial paper:— 


Classifica¬ 

tion 


Difficulties 
in Grading 


Quotations 


JAPAN 


Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Kansai 

Sinshiu 


(Ninety Days’ Basis, 13-15 Denies) 


Double Extra Cracks .$6.15 @ $6.20 

Double Extra “A” . 6.05 @ 6.10 

Double Extra “B” . 6.00 @ 6.07 

Best Extra .6.95 @ 6.02 

Extra .5.90 @ 5.97 

Best No. 1 to Extra . 5.87 @ 5.95 

Best No. 1 . 5.85 @ 5.92 

No 1 5.82 @ 5.90 

No’ 1 ” ” .5.77 @ 5.85 


CANTON 

(Ninety Days’ Basis) 

King Seng gr. 14-16 . 

Favorite—Double Extra 20-22 . 

Favorite—Double Extra 22-26 . 


$6.40 

6.00 

5.90 


SHANGHAI 
(Ninety Days’ Basis) 

CHINA STEAM FILATURE 

Gold Double Deer, new crop . 

Geranium, new crop . 

Comet .•... 

Tsatless Blue Dragon and Flying Horse. 

Black Lion, No. 1-2 . 

Tussah—Best chops . 


$7.50 

7.25 

6.60 

5.60 

5.10 

3.90 


ITALIAN 


Grand Extra Classical 

Extra Classical .■ 

Best Classical . 


$7.00 

6.80 

6.70 


113 
























Dollars Dollars 



China — Best No. 1 

Japan — Sinshiu No. 1 (Kansai No. 1, April-December, 1923) Courtesy of The Silk Association of America 

Canton — Ex. Ex. A 

















































In the Japanese classification, Kansai and Sinshiu originally indi¬ 
cated the section of Japan where the silk originated, but of recent years 
they have come to mean hard or soft natured silks respectively. The 
“Sinshiu No. 1” is usually considered the standard quotation to use in 
judging the market trend. 

The Chinese quotations are probably the most difficult to understand 
since they go almost entirely by “chop”—that is, well-known brands 
which are marked in some distinctive way, as shown on the above list of 
quotations. 


CHAPTER IV 

MANUFACTURE OF THROWN AND SPUN SILK 

We have covered in the preceding chapters the culture of raw silk, 
its reeling, and finally its marketing in the countries where it is to be 
manufactured into the finished textile. We now come to the mechanical 
phases of the industry, by which raw silk is made first into yarn and 
then into fabric. Whereas, in the case of cotton and wool, we have seen 
that yarn is manufactured by various modifications of the spinning 
process, this is not true in the case of silk. The spinning process is here 
supplanted by an operation known as “throwing,” and is resorted to 
only in the manufacture of yarn from the various kinds of silk waste. 

1. Thrown Silk 

The ordinary raw silk, as it comes from the filature and is sold in 
the market, is composed of from two to eight filaments adhering to¬ 
gether by virtue of the natural gum secreted by the worm. This thread 
is too thin and delicate for many uses and so must be submitted to 
further twisting and doubling—a process called “throwing.” It must be 
borne in mind, however, that there are several types of fabrics in which 
raw silk is used without going through the throwing operation. This is 
usually the case, for example, with the warp threads for crepes, 
charmeuse, and messaline. 

Although some of the larger silk mills have their own departments 
for this process, as a general rule it is done by independent concerns 
known as “throwsters”—who specialize in this particular operation. 
Machinery of a very complicated and accurate type is necessary, ca¬ 
pable of operating at very high speed. It has been found that the invest¬ 
ment called for to equip such a mill is too large in most cases to allow 
the manufacturers to incorporate this operation in their factories, par- 


Kansai 

and 

Sinshiu 


“Chops” 


Necessity 

for 

Throwing 


“Throwsters” 


115 



Throwing Machines 


Organzine 

and 

Tram 


Soaking 
the Raw 
Silk 


Winding 


ticularly if it happens that the spindles are not fully employed during 
the whole of the year. 

There are two main classes of thrown silk—organzine and tram—the 
former has a heavy twist and is used for the warp; while the latter is 
given only a light twist and is used for filling. Within these two general 
types there are many special grades, according to the type of material 
for which they are to be used, such as crepe, chiffon, sewing thread, floss 
silk, embroidery silk, etc. 

The raw silk as it comes to the throwing mill is done up in books of 
skeins and packed in bales, as described in a previous chapter. The 
skeins, after being weighed and examined, are first soaked for about 
twelve hours in warm soapy water, which softens the natural gum, after 
which they are thoroughly dried. This, of course, reduces the moisture 
content below the customary 11 per cent, which is later restored by 
natural absorption. 

The first step in the actual throwing is the winding of the thread on 
bobbins. The skeins are put on swifts—a light type of reel—and wound 


116 



at a very high rate of speed on the proper size of bobbin. It is here that 
the winding strength of the silk meets its severest test, for constant 
breaks during the winding involve considerable expense when speed is 
such an important factor. 

The bobbins of silk are next taken to the twister, which combines two 
or more strands and gives the thread the necessary amount of twist for 
the special type that is desired. In the case of tram a very light twist is 
given, about two or three turns to the inch. For organzine the single 
threads are first given sixteen turns to an inch in one direction, then 
doubled and twisted fourteen turns in the other direction. 

Twisting is the basis of the manufacture of the various kinds of crepe. 
The filling or tram used is given a very hard twist, about sixty-five turns 
to the inch—either in right or left-hand direction. These threads are 
later woven alternately and so produce the crinkled effect. 

Thrown silk is classified in a similar way to raw silk, except that 
usually market quotations on thrown silks mention not only the classi¬ 
fication but also the purpose for which it is to be used (tram or organ¬ 
zine), the size in deniers, the number of threads and twists to the inch. 

2. Spun Silk 

The above processes refer only to throwing of raw silk. In the case of 
waste, schappe, frisons, etc., an entirely different method must be used, 
comprising a series of operations very similar to the carding, combing 
and spinning of wool.* The gum, of which silk waste contains a very 
large proportion, must first be boiled off in a hot soapy bath or allowed 
to ferment in vats, the latter method being used more generally in 
Europe. After degumming, the waste silk is next washed and dried and 
allowed to absorb the 11 per cent moisture content, as in the case of the 
thrown silk. This is followed by picking, combing, and dressing to re¬ 
move any dirt or other foreign matter and to separate the fibres and ar¬ 
range them in parallel order. 

The silk is next separated into short laps, then drawn out into thin 
slivers by means of drawing frames, and thoroughly combed to make 
the fibres smooth and uniform. These slivers are finally made suitable 
for winding on bobbins by being passed through roving frames. Then 
follows the actual spinning process, which twists the roving into yarn. 
Different types of yarn are produced by varying the amount of twist and 
the number of strands used. Single yarn is made by twisting a single 
strand on itself, while for 2-ply, two yarns are twisted together, and so 
forth, as in the case of cotton or wool. 

*See Part Two, Page 74 to Page 78 for details of spinning. 


T wisting 


Crepe 


Spinning 

Waste 

Silk 


117 


Uses of 
Spun Silk 


Sizing 


After being cleaned and examined, the yarn is wound into skeins of 
about 5 ounces. 

The principal use of spun silk is in mixed fabrics, in conjunction with 
wool, cotton, or raw silk, the spun silk thread generally being used as 
filling rather than warp. The better grades are made into velvet and 
plush and various types of knit goods. Although high quality spun silk 
often has the strength and wearing quality of thrown silk, it never can 
compete with the latter in regard to lustre. 

Spun silk is described as to size in one of two general ways. In the 
English system the number of the yarn is the number of hanks of 840 
yards weighing a pound, with a second number indicating the ply. Thus, 
size “20-2” would designate a 2-ply yarn, a pound of which contained 
16,800 yards. The French system is more or less on the same principle, 
the main difference being that the number of the yarn indicates the 
thousands of metres weighing a kilogram. 

3. Marketing Thrown and Spun Silk 

Thrown and spun silk are bought and sold in very much the same 
way as is raw silk, although the market is not as extensive nor is the 
volume of trading as large. The following tables of quotations are from 
a recent silk journal. A comparison with the quotations given in Chap¬ 
ter III will show the appreciation in value of the various gradings 
through the throwing and spinning processes. 


THROWN SILK 

Organzine 

Double Extra Crack . $7.30 

Double Extra . 7.20 

Extra . 7.10 

Tram 

Extra . $6.85 

Best No. 1 . 6.75 

Kansai No. 1 . 6.70 

Japan Crepe Twist, 2 thread, 75 turns . 7.80 

Japan Crepe Twist, 3 and 4 thread, 60-65 turns . 7.25 

Canton Crepe Twist, 3 and 4 thread, 60-65 turns . 7.20 

Hosiery Tram . 6.75 


SPUN SILK 


6/2 . 
10/2 . 
20/2 . 
30/2 . 
40/2 . 
50/2 „ 
60/1 . 
60/2 . 


2% net 30 days 
.... $4.25 
.... 4.35 

.... 4.75 

.... 5.15 

.... 5.35 

.... 5.50 

.... 4.45 

.... 5.60 


118 





















Twisting on New Warp Threads 



Modern British Loom, 

Shown at the British Empire Exposition 
Wembley, 1924 








Imports 


Boiling 

Off 


Bleaching 


Although far from approaching raw silk, the importations of silk 
waste to this country reach quite substantial figures, as the following 


table shows: 

Raw Silk Waste Silk 

1920 30,058.374 9,400,985 

1921 45,355,095 6,849,369 

1922 50,711,826 7,638,317 

1923 49,505,581 12,101,420 


(Courtesy of Silk Association of America) 


CHAPTER V 

WEAVING AND FINISHING 

1. Weaving 

The manufacture of thrown and spun silk into the finished material, 
whether by weaving or knitting, varies with the different types of fab¬ 
ric desired. But the several processes are based on the same general 
principle and are very similar to those used for cotton and wool. To 
avoid repetition we would refer to Pages twenty-six to twenty-nine and 
Pages thirty-one to thirty-five, where full descriptions will be found. 

2. Finishing 

The first step in the finishing of fabrics is dyeing—unless it has al¬ 
ready been done before weaving. A considerable proportion of silk is 
dyed in skein or yarn form before weaving, but in either case the 
methods of dyeing are practically the same. Preparatory to dyeing it is 
necessary to boil off the natural gum by means of hot soap baths. If the 
silk is to be dyed in dark colors a considerable amount of the gum is 
allowed to remain. Such silk is known as souple silk and is used prin¬ 
cipally for filling. If all the gum has been removed, it is called bright 
silk. 

All silk, after boiling off, should be nearly pure white. Raw silk, as 
mentioned in a previous chapter, is often bright yellow, but as this 
color is entirely in the gum, it is lost by boiling off. In the case of un¬ 
even coloration in the raw silk, it is necessary to resort to bleaching be¬ 
fore dyeing in order to get uniformity in the finished product. This ap¬ 
plies particularly to wild silks, such as Tussah, which are bleached by 
being placed in an air-tight room filled with a chemical preparation, 
such as sulphur gas or sodium or hydrogen peroxide. A further wash¬ 
ing and drying is then necessary before the skeins or goods can be 
dyed. 


120 



Jacquard Loom 


There is no standard dye used for silk, some manufacturers prefer¬ 
ring one type and others, another. It may be said, however, that as a 
general rule silk is dyed by the direct method, without the use of an 
intermediate or mordant agent as in the case of cotton. This is made 

1 


Dyeing 


121 











Mordant 

Dyes 


W eighting 
Silk 



Winding Thrown Silk into Skeins for Dyeing 


possible through the natural absorptive powers of silk fibre. Mordant 
dyes are sometimes used, it is true, salts of tin or iron being employed 
as the agent; but this method is useful principally when it is desired to 
weight the silk and restore what was lost in boiling off. As this loss 
generally amounts to about 20 or 25 per cent and as raw silk is sold by 
weight, it is easy to see that this, unless recovered in some way, would 
reduce the manufacturer’s profit considerably. 

The process of weighting silk has been greatly abused, as it is com¬ 
paratively simple to adulterate it, without discovery, to such an extent 
that the properties of the fibre are seriously impaired. Weighted silk 
never has the strength or wearing quality of the unadulterated product. 
However, a certain amount of weighting—to restore a part of the de- 
gumming loss—is generally recognized as legitimate, although the per¬ 
centage permissible is often a matter for discussion. 

Both skein and piece silk are dyed by being immersed in vats contain¬ 
ing the hot dye solution. The silk is run over rollers which insure even 
coloration throughout. After dyeing it is dried, stretched on a tenter 


122 







frame and then submitted to dry heat which sets the dye and adds luster 
to the silk. 

Printing is also used for coloring and pattern effects in very much the 
same way as for cotton goods. After printing the goods are submitted to 
a dry steam heat which sets the colors. 

Beyond dyeing or printing, silk goods require very little finishing 
other than calendaring by passing through rollers. Some types of fabric 
require softening and others, hardening—accomplished in a variety of 
ways too numerous to describe. Many of these are secret processes per¬ 
fected and patented by individual companies. A multitude of different 
effects can be obtained by these various treatments of the surface of the 
goods. 


CHAPTER VI 
ARTIFICIAL SILK 

1. Early Development 

The discovery of what is known as “artificial silk” is generally attrib¬ 
uted to a Frenchman, Count Hilaire de Chardonnet, who after many 
years of research and experimentation, between 1840 and 1890, finally 
perfected a fibre that possessed the necessary qualities for practical 
weaving. He introduced his discovery to the public in 1891 at the 
Paris Exposition, and in addition to winning the “Grand Prix” was also 
made a knight of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his contribution 
to science and industry. 

Since that time others have contributed to the development of the 
new fibre and discovered other methods of production—all, however, 
based on the same general principle as the Chardonnet process. Des- 
paisses and Panly, two Frenchmen, and Stearn, Cross and Bevan, Eng¬ 
lishmen, are the outstanding names in this work. 

2. Various Processes 

All the processes that have met with any success are based on the use 
of cellulose in some form, as a foundation. The two sources that have 
proved most successful are wood-pulp and cotton and it may be said 
that the bulk of the artificial silk on the market comes from one or the 
other of these two raw materials. 

The Chardonnet process uses cotton as its base. It is first bleached, 
then by chemical treatment is changed to nitro-cellulose, which is dis¬ 
solved in alcohol and ether and thus made ready for “spinning.” 


Printing 


Finishing 


Chardonnet 


Further 

Development 


Use of 
Cellulose 


Chardonnet 

Process 


123 


Viscose 

Process 


“Spinning” 


Growth of 
the Industry 


U. S. 

Production 


The Viscose process, which has made great strides in recent years, 
makes use of a pure grade of sulphite wood-pulp. This pulp is in sheet 
form and is first treated with a solution of caustic soda, then shredded 
very fine and put through several more chemical treatments, finally be¬ 
ing dissolved in water preparatory to the “spinning.” 

In both of the above methods the production of the thread is the same. 
The solution, whether it be based on cotton or wood-pulp, is forced 
through minute holes and comes out in a thread-like stream, which so¬ 
lidifies when subjected to a setting bath. It is then washed, dryed, and 
put through processes, such as twisting, reeling, etc., very similar to 
those which natural silks undergo. 

3. Uses of Artificial Silk 

The uses of artificial silk are many and are not entirely confined to 
combinations with other textiles. Of recent years the knitting trade has 
adopted it extensively, particularly in hosiery, sweater and underwear 
manufacture. In weaving, it has proven very successful in combination 
with silk or cotton. Large quantities are used in ribbon, electric cord 
covering, yarns, threads, etc. It is generally felt that the new fibre does 
not directly compete with or replace natural silk, but rather occupies 
its own place in the trade on the same basis as the other textiles. 

It has only been during the last fifteen years that artificial silk has 
been a very important factor commercially, although for a few years 
before that time, small quantities were produced in Europe. Since about 
1910 its use has been steadily growing in this country, the importations 
from Europe increasing in 1912 from about one and one-half million 
pounds to nearly three million pounds in 1914. Since 1910 domestic 
production has also become a factor in the market and numerous fac¬ 
tories have been established, the figures for 1923 showing about 
33,000,000 pounds output. It is estimated that in 1922 the combined 
importations and domestic production amounted to around 20,000,000 
pounds, about 50% of the total consumption of natural silk for that 
year. 

The following figures show the production of artificial silk in the 
United States in 1913 and between 1920 and 1923: 


1913 

1,566,000 pounds 

1920 

8,000,000 

1921 

15,000,000 “ 

1922 

24,000,000 “ 

1923 

33,000,000 


124 


illion 

>unds 

55 

50 

45 

40 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

0 


IMPORTS OF RAW SILK 

Into The 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

Calendar Year 1914-1923 


1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 Pound 8 



Courtesy of The Silk Association of America 


































































THE INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE BANK, INC. 
AND THE SILK TRADE 


The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., finances an¬ 
nually the importation of millions of dollars worth of Silk 
from China, Japan, and Italy. 

The International Acceptance Bank, Inc., can offer ex¬ 
ceptional facilities for opening commercial letters of credit 
in the Far East by reason of its large net-work of correspon¬ 
dents, and particularly because of its close relation to the 
Netherlands Trading Society, with branches throughout 
the Far East, which is one of its leading shareholders. Through 
its close relationship with this institution, and with many 
other Eastern banks, The International Acceptance Bank, 
Inc., can obtain for its clients a highly efficient service and 
can give them the benefit of the confidential information 
which it receives. 


127 


The Berkeley Press 
Boston 





























